
A Course of Study for the Eight 
Grades of the Elementary School 



with 



A Preliminary Discussion 



of 



The Problem of Elementary English 



Second Edition 



By 

Bernard M. Sheridan, Superintendent of the Public Schools. 

Lawrence. Mass. 



SPEAKING AND WRITING 
ENGLISH 



A Course of Stucly for the Eight 
Grades of the Elementary School 

with 

A Preliminary Discussion 

of 

The Problem of Elementary English 



Second Edition 



By 

Bernard M. Sheridan, Superintendent of the Public Schools, 
Lawrence, Massachusetts 



S35" 



Acknowledgments. 

In the preparation of this course of study ideas and suggestions 
have been borrowed from many sources, and sometimes without change 
of language. Separate acknowledgment being out of the question, the 
undersigned desires to express in this place his indebtedness to all who 
have been a help to him in this way, and the hope that they in turn may 
find in these pages some ideas of his own that are worthy of imitation. 

Bernard M. Sheridan, 

Superintendent of Schools. 
June, 1915. 



/ 



CI.A428236 



MAR 24 1916 

-ho- j. 






PART ONE. 

INTRODUCTION. 

THE PROBLEM OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN 
ENGLISH IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. 

Language is by all odds the most important subject in the 
curriculum. It is, also, for many reasons the subject that is 
most difficult to teach. There has been an almost entire lack 
of standards for the teacher to go by. The language habits in 
the home and on the street are generally not good. There is so 
little "linguistic conscience" among grown up people that it is 
difficult to arouse any in little children. These difficulties have 
been enormously increased in recent years by the influx of large 
numbers of non-English-speaking peoples, with the result that 
in some schools of our city the teaching of English is no longer 
the teaching of the mother tongue, but the teaching of a 
foreign language. 

The purpose of this course of study is to help the teacher 
to meet the elementary language problem more effectively and 
more hopefully. A few things it has aimed definitely to do: 
(i) To replace vague, uncertain, and sometimes too 
ambitious aims with a purpose clearly defined and reason- 
ably possible of achievement. 

(2) To prescribe limits within which the elementary 
work in language is to be confined. 

(3) To emphasize the teaching of oral language, both 
for its own sake and for its value as a foundation and 
preparation for written language, and to formulate a 



4 INTRODUCTION 

systematic and progressive plan of teaching this most 
important and much neglected side of English composition. 
(4) To construct tentative standards of achievement 
for each of the eight elementary grades, in both oral and 
written language, which it seems reasonable to expect the 
majority of pupils to reach. 

The lack of a clear and definite limitation of the work to 
be covered in language teaching in the elementary school has 
been responsible for much of the waste which has attended the 
teaching of the subject. Courses of study have called for more 
than could possibly be accomplished. The requirements have 
been too many and too vague. Many things have been taught 
that should have been postponed to the high school, since they 
■do not appeal to the needs or the capacity of the stage of devel- 
opment of the ordinary elementary school pupil. Pupils who leave 
the elementary school before completing the course will be better 
off for having been taught a smaller number of things thoroughly 
and for having had abundant practice in these few fundamental 
things. 

The kind and amount of language training in the elemen- 
tary school should be largely determined, it seems fair to say, 
by the answers to the following questions : 

1. What are the common language needs of people 
in every day life? 

2. What specific language habits can the school 
cultivate which will most usefully meet the demands that 
will be made upon the boy and girl at the end of their 
elementary school course ? 

3. What capacity for oral and written expression 
is possessed, or may with reasonable effort be acquired, 
by ordinary children in the different grades ? 

In the light of such a study of children's language needs 
and capacities, the following would seem to be a reasonable and 
workable aim for the elementary school : 



INTRODUCTION 

/. To turn out pupils able to stand before the class 
and talk for a few minutes upon a subject within the 
range of their knowledge or experience, speaking plainly,. 
in clean-cut sentences, and without common grammatical 
mistakes. 

2. To turn out pupils able to write with fair facility 
an original paragraph upon a subject within the range 
of their experience or their interests. 

Such a paragraph should show : 

/. An absolute mastery of "the sentence idea". 

2. Freedom from glaring grammatical mistakes. 

3. Correct spelling of all ordinary words. 

./. Unfailing use of the commonest marks of punctu- 
ation. 

5. Some evidence of attention to matters of sentence 
structure and to the choice of words. 

6. Some degree of power to organize and arrange 
ideas around a central thought. 



SPOKEN ENGLISH. 

It is much more important that the elementary school should 
give pupils ability to talk well than it is that it should give them 
ability to write well. This is simply because people talk more 
than they write. Few people write much, but all people talk 
a good deal. People who write for a business may write a book 
or two in a year. Most people talk enough in a single week to 
fill a book. Few graduates of the grammar school are ever 
called upon in after days to submit to a test of their knowledge 
of arithmetic or history or geography. But their spoken Eng- 
lish is being passed upon every day of their lives, and it is 
largely upon the basis of this test that they are adjudged to be 
educated or uneducated men and women. Moreover, their 
success in business and in their intercourse with other people 
depends more than is commonly realized upon their power to 
speak well. Yet of all the subjects in the curriculum oraL 



6 INTRODUCTION 

language seems to be least effectively taught. Indistinct 
utterance, poor sentence structure, grammatical mistakes, a 
poverty of words, and a lack of anything like fluency are coo 
common in the speech of grammar school graduates. 

There are several reasons why our pupils do not learn 
to talk well: 

(i) There is not enough of oral language work, as a 
separate and distinct training, in the elementary school. 

(2) Oral work is not utilized as much as it ought to be 
as an aid in, and a preparation for, written work. The child 
who is to be taught to write well must first be taught to 
talk well. 

(3) The other subjects of the course are not utilized as 
effectively as they might be to develop power in oral composition. 
All these provide occasion for a free and natural use of 
language on the part of the pupils, and fruitful observation of 
their speech on the part of the teacher. 

(4) The common method of the recitation furnishes little 
motive for the pupil to talk well. Very rarely has he the 
sense that he is addressing an audience with the purpose of 
actually telling or saying something worth while. Most of the 
things he recites, and some of the things he reads aloud, have 
very little interest for him. When he recites, he recites to the 
teacher, and much of what he says is lost to the pupils avIio sit 
behind him. When he reads, he reads to the teacher with ihe 
audience behind his back ; or, if he stands in front of the 
room, he reads to an audience whose every eye is following the 
words he is reading. Since he is conscious of no real need to 
speak clearly and distinctly, that his fellow-pupils may hear, 
he does not do so. 

(5) The school has perpetually to fight the bad influence 
■of the language environment in which many pupils spend their 
•out-of-school hours. 

(6) The school makes the mistake of thinking it can 
correct bad habits of speech by the application of the rules of 
grammar. The ability to talk correctly comes from practice 
and not from the study of rules. The pupil hears these in- 
correct forms over and over again on the street. Obedient to 



INTRODUCTION - 

the principle of motor reaction, such forms invariably "write 
themselves out" in his daily speech. It is of little avail that 
the pupil knows what is right. He must hear it ; say it ; 
say it again and again and again ; say it until the motor re- 
action is so strong that the right form stamps its impression 
on the spinal cord and wipes out the wrong one. Only practice 
can make perfect. 

These matters receive attention, over and over again, in 
the pages that follow. It is not thought necessary at this 
time to do more than state them. 



An effective course in oral composition should include the 
following essential things : 

(i) Much opportunity for free self expression. 

(2) Constant attention to matters of voice, enuncia- 
tion, pronunciation, and inflection. 

(3) The training of children, by constant practice, 
to compose oral paragraphs upon simple themes, and the 
development, through these, of some elementary skill in 
selecting, arranging and expressing their ideas. 

( 4 ) Unremitting efforts in all grades to eliminate the 
common errors of speech. 

( 1 ) The child's free self-expression is developed best by 
drawing upon his own personal experience. That is what the 
youngest pupil knows best and can talk about best. Imagination 
follows experience directly. It is a personal field, easily and 
pleasurably worked. Reproduction has to do largely with 
what lies outside of the personal experiences of children, to 
things that they do not really know. Memory is the principal 
factor in reproduction. Experience and imagination have little 
to do with it. It is, therefore, the least profitable field for 
children's free expression, and should be sparingly used. 

(2) The "schoolroom voice" has long been a term of 
reproach. Teachers may not be able to improve the quality of 



g INTRODUCTION 

their pupils' voices, but they can do a great deal toward getting 
pupils to speak in an easy and natural tone of voice, which will 
still be audible not only to the teacher, but also to the pupils 
in all parts of the .room. In addition, constant attention should 
be given, day in and day out, to matters of clear articulation, 
correct pronunication, and right inflection. By making the 
conditions of the recitation such that the pupils get the feeling 
that they are actually talking to one another with the intention 
of imparting information, or opinions, and not merely "reciting" 
to the teacher to prove they have learned their lessons, the 
speech of children would greatly improve in these respects. But 
no matter how favorable to good talking the schoolroom 
conditions are made, pupils ought to have throughout the entire 
course systematic training through special exercises. 

In an appendix will be found lists of some of the most 
common defects in the enunciation of children and some exer- 
cises designed to remove them. The exercises printed tbere 
are meant only to be suggestive. Teachers will doubtless be 
able to supplement them by many others of their own. There 
is, however, enough material in the printed drills, if they are 
diligently used, to turn in the right direction the careless 
tendency so manifest in the speech habits of children. 

(3) Oral composition, as the term is used in this course 
of study, means a great deal more than ordinary talking or 
conversation, which as often as not is fragmentary and discon- 
nected. By oral composition is meant a body of conned ed 
speech, large enough in scope to demand attention to its 
structure and form. All the qualities that are to be developed 
in the written composition, may be, and ought to be, developed 
first in the oral exercise : choice and variety of words, quality 
and variety of sentences, and arrangement of sentences in a 
paragraph. This development will, of course, be slow and 
gradual. But there will be no improvement at all, unless 
children are habituated from the first to be critical of their 
spoken English, in so far, at least, as the more flagrant mistakes 
in syntax are concerned, and the more fundamental matters of 
sentence structure and use of connectives. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

This course of study provides for much practice in com- 
posing oral paragraphs and gives many suggestions for teaching- 
children how to acquire the art of developing interesting oral 
themes on subjects within the range of their interests and ex- 
perience. Numerous examples of oral compositions, drawn 
from the actual work of pupils, are given under every grade. 

(4) (The habit of correct speech cannot be gained from a 
study of grammar^ Good habits or bad habits of speech are 
pretty well fixed before the child studies grammar and before 
he could possibly derive any benefit from a study of it. Good 
English is mastered by practice, not by rule. It is of little 
use for the children to know principles or rules. They may 
spend a week learning the rules for the agreement of the verb 
with its subject, but rules will not prevent them from saying 
"he don't". But if they are made to repeat "he doesn't", 
"he doesn't", "he doesn't", alone or in concert, in as many 
sentences as can be made by talking as fast as they can f or 
five or ten minutes, the correct form will finally begin to sound 
right. It is not knowledge, but habit that counts. 

In this course of study an attempt has been made to allot 
to each grade a number of common errors for correction. 
Naturally such a distribution is more or less arbitrary. That 
certain errors of speech are listed under one grade and not 
under another does not imply a failure to realize that all of 
the errors are committed by pupils in all the grades, or that 
the correction of them in one grade will make it unnecessary 
to fight against the same errors in succeeding grades. The 
chief object of allotting the correction of certain errors to 
certain grades and that of certain other errors to other grades 
is to focus the attention of both teachers and pupils upon a 
relatively few points, for which they will be held accountable. 

The "language game" has been found to be one of the' 
most effective methods for teaching right forms of speech, 
particularly in the primary grades. By means of these the 
child is brought frequently to use the correct forms in a natural, 
manner and under conditions which appeal strongly to him. 
In an appendix a number of these games will be found. 



I0 INTRODUCTION 

prefaced by an interesting analysis of the common errors of 
children's speech, based upon a systematic study conducted by 
the teachers of a city school system during the whole of a 
school year. 



WRITTEN ENGLISH. 

IN GENERAL. 

When the pupil comes to put on paper what he has to 
say, the situation becomes complicated by the entrance of factors 
which were not present when he was expressing himself orally. 
He must think about his penmanship. He must watch his 
spelling. He must look out for his capitals, his punctuation, his 
indentations, and all that. These things become automatic, or 
nearly so, after years of training and practice ; so that educated 
men and women are required to give little or no thought to 
their penmanship, spelling, punctuation, and the other technical- 
ities of written expression. But the child is at first obliged 
to think of all these things all of the time. By degrees, 
however, with reasonably good instruction and sufficient practice 
of the right kind, the observance of the simpler requirements 
of written technique becomes habitual to him, so that by the 
time the pupil has completed the elementary school course, he 
ought to be fairly free from the necessity of giving conscious 
attention to the mechanics of written language. 

Added to the mechanical difficulties of written expression, 
there is present, also, at the moment of writing, a self- 
consciousness which tends to check the spontaneity wrr'ch 
characterizes his oral efforts. In the case of children this is 
no doubt partly due to the demands made upon them by the 
technique of written expression (penmanship, spelling, capitals, 
punctuation, and so on) all of which, because they have not 
yet become matters of established habit, are a constant drain 
upon their attention, and act like brakes upon the relatively 
free and easy delivery of their ideas which characterizes their 
spoken language. Thought has a stronger and closer association 



INTRODUCTION x l 

with speech than with writing, and even adults, whose penman- 
ship and spelling and punctuation have hecome matters of 
second nature, requiring no conscious attention during the 
process of composition, find their expression slowing down the 
moment they put pen to paper. Written expression is of its 
very nature slower, more deliberate, more careful, and, there- 
fore, more productive of self-consciousness than oral expression. 
But with children it is probably true that the chief difficulty 
which written language at first presents over oral language 
is the attention which has to be given to the technicalities of 
writing, the penmanship, the spelling, the punctuation, the use 
of capitals, and matters pertaining to the arrangement of the 
composition on the paper. 

.Strictly speaking, penmanship and spelling are not matters 
of language technique at all, since they are not developed 
primarily through written language. The school program 
provides separate drill for both. The failure to use capitals 
correctly and the simpler marks of punctuation (the period 
and the comma ) is accounted for not so much by the supposition 
that these things are difficult in themselves as it is explained 
by the lack of careful training in oral language. The child 
who is trained from the first to speak in clear cut sentences 
will after a while acquire such a strong sentence sense tnat 
he will seldom, if ever, write as a sentence a group of words 
that is not a sentence. Pupils write in the classroom as they 
have been accustomed to talk in the classroom. Failure to use 
capitals and periods in written composition is largely due to 
bad oral habits. If children do not possess the sentence sense, 
their written work is sure to contain many omissions of 
capitals and periods, and consequently many misuses of the 
comma. The teaching of written language, so far as correctness 
goes, offers but few difficulties over and above those which are 
met with in the teaching of oral language. 

There is, of course, more than mechanical correctness to 
be sought in written composition. There must, in addition, be 
some attention paid in the upper grades to sentence structure 
and to some of the other rudiments of style. For this purpose, 
the careful and deliberate written exercise, giving opportunity 



I2 INTRODUCTION 

for thought, for studied revision, and finished workmanship,. 
is a more effective vehicle of instruction than the oral exercise, 
which must of necessity be less thoughtful and structurally less 
excellent. Still, the teacher should never forget that the basis 
of all good written work is laid in good oral work, and that if 
oral work is neglected, her efforts to produce good written 
language will be in vain. 

Written composition, then, so far as the mechanics of 
writing are concerned, does not offer so many difficulties as 
the teacher has been inclined to attribute to it. But the few 
things that are required in the way of written technicalities 
must be mastered as early as possible in the course, so that 
these difficulties will not stand too long in the way of the 
freedom and spontaneity of the child's expression. So long as 
his attention is distracted from the thought of what he wants 
to say by thinking of his penmanship, his spelling, his 
punctuation, and similar matters of written technique, his 
composition is likely to be formal and meagre and uninteresting. 
On the other hand, it would be folly to attempt to cultivate 
freedom of expression by allowing children to write regardless 
of the rules of punctuation, spelling, arrangement, and the 
like. These matters of written technique (and we are dealing 
with only the simplest items of them in this course of study) 
should not, during the process of writing, hold the center of 
consciousness. They should occupy only the "margin" of con- 
sciousness, as we say. But before they can be safely relegated 
to the margin, they must first have occupied the centre of 
consciousness for some time. Children do not possess intuitively 
habits of correct written expression. These must be built up 
from the day that written language is begun in the second grade. 
The important thing, and the difficult thing, is to give sufficient 
drill on the mechanics of written composition, without killing 
the child's spontaneity and his freedom of expression. Drill 
on the mechanics of written composition there must be, from 
the very start. At the same time, the teacher must be extremely 
cautious not to let her insistence upon correct form kill the 
child's desire for self-expression. Form must be taught, and 
in the process content must not be sacrificed. This is a task 



INTRODUCTION 



>3 



that calls for all the wisdom and all the ingenuity of the 
teacher. It is the real test of the good teacher of composition. 

ONE PARAGRAPH COMPOSITIONS. 

At the outset of this discussion the statement was made 
that the lack of a clear and definite limitation of the language 
work in the grades below the high school has been responsible 
for a great deal of the ineffectiveness of our teaching, and the 
following general standard was there set up as a reasonable 
measure of attainment in written composition for the ordinary 
graduate of a Lawrence grammar school: 

"The ability to write with fair facility an original 
paragraph upon a subject within the range of his ex- 
perience or his interests, using sentences grammatically 
complete and correctly punctuated, with correct spelling. 

and free from grievous grammatical mistakes." 

) 
This standard has the merit of being tolerably definite and 
reasonably possible of attainment. Later on in the course of 
study, under assignment of work by grades, there will be 
found paragraphs written by children, which have been adopted 
as tentative standards for the different grades. 

The chief reason for limiting the written exercise to a 
single paragraph is to assure sufficient practice in writing which 
a longer composition makes impossible, and to focus the atten- 
tion of both pupil and teacher upon the smallest possible 
language field. In addition to the opportunity it affords for 
practice, the single paragraph is admirably suited to the pur- 
poses of teaching elementary composition. It is a complete 
unit, a whole composition in miniature. It gives free range 
to development of sentence structure. It may illustrate all the 
forms of discourse: narration, description, exposition, argument, 
as the four chief kinds of writing are technically known. It is 
subject to all the laws of discourse. By its use the child 
gains a practical knowledge of every important feature of 
literary workmanship. The child need not be conscious of 



14 



INTRODUCTION 



these things. But the teacher should think of them all' 
the time. 

The children in the lower grades will not, of course, be 
expected to produce a paragraph. In the first grade, children 
will make a sentence or two with alphabet cards, first from 
sentences written on the board by the teacher, and later will 
construct one or two original sentences, based mostly on their 
reading lessons. By the time the pupil has reached the third 
grade he will be taught to cast his sentences into a form of a 
paragraph. This paragraph will at first be short and simple. 
It will grow in length and in organization of thought during 
each succeeding year of the elementary school course. 

THE MASTERY OF "THE SENTENCE IDEA." 

The fundamental thing, the element upon which all other 
details of composition depend and upon which the whole 
superstructure of composition is built, is the mastery of the 
sentence. Nothing, therefore, is more important in the earlier 
grades than the development of what is variously called "the 
sentence idea", "the sentence sense", "the sentence feeling",, 
"the sentence instinct" — the trained habit of mind by which the 
completed thought is recognized as complete, and left to stand 
by itself. The lack of this fundamental "sentence sense" is the 
most glaring fault of elementary school compositions. It is a 
natural enough fault in very young pupils, but its persistence 
in the higher grades, as is too often the case, seems almost 
indefensible. 

This fault appears in two forms. The first is present in 
the composition that rambles on and on, with statement after 
statement strung along on a series of "and's", "hut's" , and 
"so's", often without so much as a comma to separate the 
different statements. Very young children talk in this fashion, 
prattling on in a breathless stream of words, seldom dropping 
their voices until they have reached the end of what they have 
to say. Children in school talk in much the same way. Here 



INTRODUCTION 



15 



are some stenographic reports of actual talk of third grade 
pupils recently heard in our own schools : 

"My mother told me to go to the store and get her a loaf of 
bread and then I went to the store and the bread fell down and 
got all muddy." 

"The ship was very, very long and it carried coal and some- 
times it carried pig iron and one day my papa got off the boat to 
buy me a fish line and one day I had that fish line and I was 
trying to fish on the river but the fish pulled so that I couldn't 
fish any more and my mother said to stop because it was too 
hard." 

The source of this fault suggests its remedy. Children 
must be taught through much careful oral work to break them- 
selves of this bad habit. Most of our troubles in written 
composition come from our neglect of oral composition. The 
child who has been taught to speak in clean-cut sentences will 
give the teacher little annoyance by writing the kind of sentence 
that is here described. This has been said before, and is 
repeated here only to remind the teacher that if this fault 
persists in the written compositions of her pupils, it is because 
she has failed to head off the trouble by sufficient oral practice 
on this particular point. While the habit is being broken up, 
the children's sentences will become short and jerky. But this 
will do no harm. The later grades will attend to that. In any 
case, the "choppy" sentence is preferable to the "run on' r 
sentence. 

The other form in which this lack of "sentence feeling" 
shows itself is worse in some respects than the first, because 
it is a more violent breach of the laws of the sentence. Here 
is an illustration of it : 

"My dog is a spaniel his name is Nep, that stands for Neptune. 
Neptune was the sea god, we call the dog Nep because he is so 
fond of the water, he likes to be in it all the time, once he got 
caught in the weeds and was nearly drowned."' 

The fault here consists not in stringing together a number 
of statements by "ands", but in running complete statements 



T 6 INTRODUCTION 

together without periods and capitals. Sometimes no mark 
separates the sentences. If any mark is employed, it is only 
the comma. Hence it is that text-book writers, in referring to 
this fault, call it "the comma sentence." So common is tne 
blunder in the writing of young children that it has come to 
be known as The Child's Error. To make the offence more 
heinous in the sight of his pupils one teacher is known to have 
named it "The Baby's Mistake". In high school text-books 
(because of our neglect the fault often persists beyond the 
elementary school) it is variously referred to as "the badge of 
ignorance", "the badge of shiftlessness", "the hopeless error". 
These epithets indicate how important it. is that this fault 
should be gotten rid of early, if it is to be gotten rid of at all. 
Calling names, however, seldom does any good. What we need 
to remember is that the habit of running sentences together, 
either by the "and" method or the "no stop" method is an 
exceedingly unfortunate one, and very hard to overcome, if it 
once gets a good start. 

If a close study is made of children's compositions with 
reference to The Child's Error, it will be found to occur most 
often when there is a close relation between one sentence and 
the next. This close relation is present whenever the succeeding 
sentence begins with a pronoun, the antecedent of which is 
the subject of the preceding sentence. Thus, in the illustration 
above, "My dog is a spaniel, his name is Nep," the child is 
conscious of a very close relation between the two statements. 
He has a dog, and the dog's name is Nep. For this reason, 
children are particularly in danger of committing the Child's 
Error when a sentence begins with he, she, it, they, tins, 
these, etc., because sentences beginning with these words, while 
heing grammatically independent, are somewhat dependent for 
their meaning upon the preceding sentence. In the same way, 
a clause or a phrase coming at the end of a sentence is likely 
to be thought of as an independent statement. It is easy for 
the child to forget it is a part of the sentence. Thus : "Wash- 
ington once saved a child. Jumping into a swift stream to 
save it." Or : "And so the boy got the sled after all. Which 
was just what he wanted." Trained writers do not place clauses 



INTRODUCTION 



17 



and phrases in such places. But beginners are crude in the 
art of sentence structure, and for this reason are prone to use 
the rear-end phrase or clause, set off as an independent state- 
ment marked by both capital and period. 

It has been thought worth while to present the problem of 
the sentence in considerable detail, and to call attention to some 
of the reasons which render pupils peculiarly liable to the 
errors we have been describing. The mastery of the sentence 
is absolutely basal in elementary written work. It is folly to 
talk about teaching "style" and the other refinements of writing 
until children are sentence-sure. There are a good many things 
we would do, if we could. A few we must do. "There is no 
use in trying" to build a superstructure, when the foundation is 
lacking. And the foundation of all writing — of all expression 
of thought — is the sentence. 

CORRECT SPELLING OF COMMON WORDS. 

There are two things in the general run of school com- 
positions that, above all others, make countless teachers mourn. 
The first is the bad sentence — the "stringy" sentence, the 
"comma sentence", or worse, the sentence that is not a sentence 
at all. This was dealt with in the preceding chapter. The 
other is the misspelling of common words. If these two 
conspicuous defects were absent from the compositions, how 
much brighter the world would seem to the teacher who sits 
down resignedly to correct a set of papers. Even a paper 
absolutely wooden in respect to interest and style, if it were 
free from these two glaring faults, would seem positively 
hopeful. 

We have been teaching spelling faithfully enough, but we 
have not been teaching it intelligently enough. We have been 
wasting precious time teaching children how to spell thousands 
of w^ords they seldom or never write, while we have not taught 
them to spell the really small number of words that they write 
all the time. The trouble has been that our material of spelling 
has been chosen without reference to the fact that children 



x8 INTRODUCTION 

possess three vocabularies (a reading, a speaking, and a writing 
vocabulary) and that spelling relates only to the last of these, 
the writing vocabulary. All this is admirably summed up in 
the conclusions of the investigation of the material of spelling 
made last year by the Division of Education in the University 
of South Dakota. Here are three of them: 



I. Since students in the highest grade of our common schools 
have on the average less than 2,500 words in their writing, or 
spelling, vocabularies, our first conclusion is, our spelling material 
is bad in that it gives thousands of words which children do not 
use, and at the same time we are not teaching them to spell the 
much smaller lists of words which they do use. 



2. The words which give most trouble in spelling are found, 
almost without exception, in the writing vocabularies of the lower 
grades ; and since these troublesome but useful words are not 
pointed out and effectively dealt with in these early grades, our 
handling of the most dangerous spelling material is not efficient, 
and students go on misspelling-, year after year, words that should 
be mastered in the early school years. 



3. Since grade students commonly use from 500 to 2,500 
words in writing, yet on the average misspell but about fifty words, 
not one child out of a thousand misspelling as many as one hundred 
words, our spelling problem is not so gigantic as it is commonly 
believed to be, for the reason that a handful of words misspelled 
over and over by each student has misled us in our judgment. 



A list of about two hundred common words frequently mis- 
spelled is printed in this course of study (under assignment of 
work by grades), upon which teachers are asked to place 
special emphasis in their teaching of spelling. The list contains 
practically all of the "one hundred spelling demons" of the 
South Dakota report. Some of the words are repeated every 
year. Most of the words are introduced early in the course. 
A vigorous campaign against this handful of troublesome words 
for the space of a single year would go a long way toward 
banishing from school compositions the great bulk of the 
spelling errors which at present disfigure them. 



INTRODUCTION 



19 



SUBJECTS SHOULD BE CONCRETE, PERSONAL, 
DEFINITE, AND BRIEF. 

A good subject is half the battle. Children cannot be 
expected to write upon a subject about which they know little 
and care less. You cannot get blood out of a turnip. 

Subjects should be chosen within the range of the pupil's 
knowledge and interests. Children like best what they know 
most about, and they love to write when they know what they 
are writing about. There is all the difference in the world 
between "having to say something and having something to say." 

Knowdedge and interest, therefore, are necessary conditions 
for good work in composition. Children's lives are crowded 
with incidents ; they have plenty of ideas and opinions which 
they are eager to express. Every child who is not feeble- 
minded has something worth saying if he is given a decent 
chance to say it. From their life at home, in the streets, in 
school ; from their sports, amusements, duties, tasks ; from the 
things they have seen and heard and felt and done ; from the 
things they read and the things they imagine : from all these 
may be drawn an almost endless variety of subjects, full of the 
breath of life and the actuality of experience. 

Some children, of course, are less keen in their observation 
than others, and all children need to have their eyes opened and 
their wits sharpened to see interesting themes in the incidents 
and experiences which make up their daily life. To ' teach 
children to observe closely and to think clearly and consecutively 
is one of the chief values of training in composition. In 
handling subjects drawn from every day life there will be need 
at first for the teacher to exercise skill in keeping the children's 
compositions from becoming trite and trivial. This she can 
do by training children to discover interest in common things, 
and by suggesting a live manner of treatment. Nothing in the 
world is commonplace unless we make it so. 

Subjects, then, should be personal and concrete. They need 
not always be of actual experience. Children have strong 
imaginations and can project themselves into a "figured" 



20 INTRODUCTION 

environment. They like nothing better than to write from the 
standpoint of some imaginary person who for the moment they 
believe themselves to be. Even in writing about an actual 
experience there is always room for the play of imagination. 
Indeed, it is only in terms of the imagination that the actual 
can be interpreted. 

Besides being personal and concrete, subjects should be 
definite and brief. "How I Spent My Vacation" is concrete 
and personal ; but it lacks the second essential of a good sub- 
ject: it is neither definite nor brief. It is impossible for any 
child to write in an interesting manner upon such a subject 
within the limits of a single paragraph. At best, it can be no 
more than a bare catalogue of events. Within the compass of 
any vacation, long or short, there is a score of incidents and 
experiences exactly suitable for narrating or describing in the 
written paragraph, because they give opportunity for striking 
and vivid detail ; but to ask a child to set down in a single 
paragraph the doings of a whole vacation is to foredoom him to 
failure. The subject of "Birds" is another example of the too 
large topic. It has the quality of being concrete, and if the 
pupil to whom it is assigned knows something of birds at first 
hand, it has for him also the quality of being personal. But 
what child, no matter how well he knows the birds, can put 
anything of himself into a single paragraph on the general 
subject of "Birds"? "The Oriole's Nest", on the other hand, 
offers a specific theme for his knowledge, and he can treat it 
adequately in an ordinary paragraph. Better even than "The 
Oriole's Nest" would be a single phase of that interesting bit 
of bird life, — such as the location of the nest, or its architecture, 
or its special adaption to the use Of this bird of the golden 
plumage and the golden voice. A child's paragraph on "A Trip 
on a Trolley Car" is not likely to produce much beyond a 
record of routes and running time. If, instead, the pupil should 
describe a Sunday school party on a trolley car, en route to a 
picnic in the morning, and a companion paragraph about tlie 
same party's return from the picnic grove at night, hot, tired, 
limp, and generally out of sorts, he would stand a vastly better 
chance of writing something worth while. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

Teachers should, therefore, narrow their subjects. This 
focuses thinking, establishes a single point of view, and makes 
it possible for the child to put his own thinking into his com- 
position. After that, even, it will be found necessary to train 
children to single out some particular point in his specific 
subject, so as to make some one idea stand out prominently. 
For an illustration of this take these two compositions on the 
subject, "Coming to School". 



COMING TO SCHOOL. 

This morning I started from my home about eight o'clock to 
walk to school. When I got to my friend's house, she was already 
outside waiting for me, so we started right off. In front of us 
were a few girls we knew. They were all talking about a party 
they had been to the night before. My friend and I were asking 
each other questions about our history lesson, which was to come 
that morning. As we walked fast, we reached school about twenty 
minutes past eight. 



COMING TO SCHOOL. 

It was fifteen minutes after eight o'clock when I started for 
school with an armful of books and a feeling that I had forgotten 
something in my hurry. A little farther along, I met my chum, 
who joined me in my haste, for neither of us wanted to spoil our 
records by tardiness, especially so near the beginning of the school 
year. We seemed to make very good time, and were within sight 
of the school building, when I suddenly remembered that 1 had 
been told to order something at a store which we had already 
passed on our way to school. So I left my friend, ran back a 
short distance, and entered the store, entirely out of breath. As 
nobody was in sight to wait on me, I coughed as loud as I could, 
and soon a young man came out from the rear of the store, slowly 
putting on his white coat. It seemed to me that I stood there half 
an hour while he fixed his coat and wrote down my order, but 
it was really only two minutes. At the end of that time I rushed 
from the store and ran the remaining short distance to the school 
as fast as I knew how. Luckily, I didn't have to climb any stairs, 
but reached my room and sank into my chair out of breath, just 
as the last bell rang. Right there and then I made up my mind 
that I would start for school earlier, for I do not like such 
narrow escapes. 



22 INTRODUCTION 

The first composition is ineffective because it recounts a 
mere string of happenings, which make no particular impression. 
The second one is much more effective, because it brings out 
strongly the single thought of how close a call the writer had 
from being tardy. It illustrates, too, the three principles which 
children should gradually be taught to observe in their paragraph 
writing : ( i ) To bring out a single point that is interesting, 
entertaining, or instructive. (2) To select a point that can 
be brought out in the space allowed (a single paragraph). (3) 
To bring out the point in the most effective manner possible. 

In the assignment of work by grades a number of topics 
have been printed, as suggestive of the kind of subjects that 
ought to be used. Nearly all of them were contributed by 
teachers. Some effort has been made to grade them, though 
this arrangement is not important. The subjects listed under 
one grade may well be used in any other, with or without 
adaptation. The treatment of them will, of course, be different 
according to the age of the pupils, their growing maturity of 
thought, and their experience and skill in writing. It is not 
intended that only these subjects shall be used, or that any 
of them shall be used, if teachers can invent better ones. 
After all, the teacher is the best judge of the subjects her 
children are interested in and about which, consequently, they 
can write with confidence and pleasure. The reason for printing 
them at all is to indicate the kind of subjects which should 
invariably be chosen — concrete, personal, definite, and brief. 

THE CORRECTION OF COMPOSITIONS. 

"How shall I correct my written work?" For years this 
question has been asked oftener perhaps than any other 
question connected with the teaching of English. It is an 
important question, and the attempts to answer it have done 
much to remove from our practice some things that were 
wasteful, if not positively wrong. But there still remains 
considerable difference of opinion as to just what is the right 
thins: to do. Some teachers believe that the teacher should 



INTRODUCTION 23 

note and mark every mistake, and that papers should be re- 
written with every mistake removed. Others, in revolt against 
the "reign of red-ink", have gone to the extreme of thinking that 
little or no correction of papers is necessary, and that correct 
language habits will somehow come down from the skies, if 
the pupil is required to write often enough. These teachers are 
fond of quoting, "The way to learn how to write is to write." 
But that isn't the whole story. The way to learn to write is to 
write under the right kind of instruction and correction. 

As a matter of fact the question of "How shall I correct 
my written work ?" cannot be answered intelligently until 
another much more important one is answered, "Why do I 
correct my written work?" 

Judging from a very common practice of the teacher to 
go over every paper and correct every mistake, one would 
suppose the chief purpose of the teacher's correction was to 
secure a correct composition. She marks all misspelled words, 
puts in a capital here and period there, inserts a comma 
occasionally, straightens up an awkward sentence or two, deftly 
combines a pair of jerky sentences into a single smooth one, 
and maybe writes a closing sentence to make the composition 
finish strong. Then the pupil "re-writes" it, in his best hand- 
writing (making a few mistakes in the "revise" that he did 
not make the first time) and the composition is put away with 
others as a sample of the pupil's work. 

The next day she does the same. So do the pupils. With 
smiling serenity they repeat in their compositions the mistakes 
of yesterday, and of last week, and of last year, which all the 
while the teacher has been laboriously marking on their papers. 
For hundreds of years teachers have been correcting com- 
positions in some such way as this, and their pupils have gone 
on making just the same mistakes over and over again. 
Evidently we have been going up the wrong street. 

It is not the composition that we want to make perfect. 
We want to make the pupil's pozver to write one a little less 
imperfect. The product upon which we expend our red ink is 
of slight importance compared with the poiver which it should be 
the teacher's aim to develop. None of us can turn out in a 



24 INTRODUCTION 

first draft a perfect copy of what we wish to say. We are 
compelled to look over our work carefully, to correct it, to be 
perpetually on the lookout for errors in our English, in our 
punctuation, even in our spelling. That is precisely what the 
teacher's correction should train children to do — or to begin 
to do. The purpose of the teacher's correction is to cultivate 
in her pupils the habit of self-criticism. The only correction 
of compositions that is of any earthly use is that which trains 
children to correct their own. This cannot be attained by red- 
inking every mistake, for the purpose of future correction, nor 
by neglecting to red-ink at all. It can only be attained by 
following out consistently all through the grades a method 
based on several very important principles. 

1. There must be some degree of progression in the work 
of correction. It is useless to attempt to correct everything in 
every composition. No child should be expected to turn out an 
absolutely perfect paper. To secure a habit of correct ex- 
pression, the only economical procedure is to see to it that the 
children work from month to month to correct a few mistakes 
at a time. Pupils will thus be more likely to have in mind, at 
any given period, the errors they are to avoid, and v* ill 
accordingly tend to grow self-critical. 

2. It is well to remember that the object of correcting is 
not to mark the pupil, but to help the pupil. This being so, it 
follows that the teacher will more likely be of genuine service 
to the pupil if she will enter so sympathetically into the work 
as to appreciate the individual difficulties of the writer. Here 
lies the value of the conference period. By sitting down by the 
side of the pupil and reading over his composition with him, 
the teacher can come into a direct personal relationship. This 
conference is, with many children, held most effectively when 
they are writing. 

3. Pupils should be taught how to criticise, and how to 
intelligently appreciate their own and one another's work. 
Thus criticism by the teacher, which is indispensable, may be 
supplemented by trained criticism on the part of the writer's 
classmates. In teaching children how to criticise, teachers 



INTRODUCTION 



25 



should suggest a definite plan to be followed by them. Points 
like the following are suggestive : 

1. Read the composition through. 

2. Is it interesting? Tell one thing that made it so. 

3. Did he write as if he were interested in his subject? 

4. Did the writer keep to his subject. Did he put anything in it 
that was unnecessary? 
Were any of the expressions new to you? 
Mention any apt word that you noticed. 
Indicate a particularly good sentence, or sentences. 
Indicate a sentence or sentences that could be improved. 
Help the pupil to restate it. 



Correct grammatical errors. 
Correct mechanical errors. 



4. Many mistakes can be prevented by forewarning. 
Prevent means "to go before". 

5. The teacher should never forget that criticism deals 
with merits as well as with defects. 

Teachers must remember that the matter of the pupil's 
correction of his own work depends on his interest. You 
cannot develop the power of self-criticism in the boy who 
doesn't care whether he is right or wrong. One teacher can 
compel a boy to write a composition, but the whole school 
department cannot make him correct it intelligently unless he 
■wants to. It is the teacher's business to make him want to. 

There will not be much chance of his wanting to correct 
his own written work or much profit in letting him assist in the 
correction of other pupils' compositions until the following 
things shall have been done : 

1. There must be aroused in him the desire for self- 
expression. 

2. He must be led to see that there are ways of 
saying things which are better than other ways ; that 
there is something which we call "good English", which 
it is worth while learning how to use. 

3. He must be led honestly to prefer the better way 
of saying things to the way that was good enough for 
him before. 



2 (j INTRODUCTION 

4. His criticism of his own work must at first be 
directed until it is impartial and unsparing. 

5. His criticism of others must be directed and 
controlled. Criticism, like charity, should begin at home, 
but it very often does not. Until a pupil has proved him- 
self a careful critic of his own compositions, he should 
not be allowed to criticise the work of others. At all 
times children, as well as teachers, must remember that 
criticism is quite as much a matter of merit as it is of 
mistakes. Pupils must be taught to realize when a thing 
is good, to be made to think why it is good, and to learn 
what it means to commend as well as to condemn. 

In the upper grades, the pupil's observance of the following 
rules will minimize the necessity of the teacher's correction: 

1. To select a subject for the composition paragraph out of his 
observation, experience, or reading, which he knows he can 
write about interestingly within the limits of a single paragraph, 
and to decide just what phase of the subject to write about. 

2. To think it over before writing, so as to make a sort of mental 
outline of what he is going to write. 

3. To use fairly short sentences, each of which has one and only 
one principal thought. 

4. After the first writing, to correct and improve his paragraph, 
by reading it over several times, each time with a distinct 
object in view. 

a) The first time to improve the paragraph as a whole ; to put 
in facts or ideas forgotten ; to use a more expressive verb 
here or a more telling adjective there; to make the ending 
as effective as possible: in general, to satisfy himself on the 
spot that he has done with the subject the best he knows 
how. 

b) The second time to improve his sentence structure and his 
grammar ; to note when a long sentence may be broken 
into two shorter ones with advantage, or when a succession 
of very short sentences, giving a "choppy" effect, may be 
made into slightly longer sentences, connected by some 
other words than "and", or "but", and other overworked 
connectives ; to see that every verb agrees in number with 
its subject, and every pronoun with its antecedent. 

c) The third time to make sure that every sentence begins 
with a capital and ends with the proper mark; to see that 



INTRODUCTION 27 

commas are used where they are necessary to the sense-; to 
run his eyes over the words to see that each is spelled 
correctly, particularly those words which have proved his 
downfall many times before. 

Let it be remarked, in closing, that no child profits much 
from re-writing his composition. It is a good deal more 
sensible to let him apply what he has learned from his teacher's 
correction to a new composition. There are times, of course, 
when slovenly work must be penalized by compelling the 
perpetrator to do his work over. But the ordinary re-writing 
of papers, to secure a "high finish", is generally a waste of 
precious time. 



COPYING AND DICTATION AS AIDS IN TEACHING 
COMPOSITION. 

The dictation exercise, if employed in moderation and with 
a clear understanding of its use, is valuable in helping to fix 
habits of written technicalities, — spelling, capitals, punctuation, 
and things of that sort. It performs the same office as abstract 
work in arithmetic. In the dictation exercise we isolate the 
forms of language and focus attention entirely upon them. In 
writing compositions the centre of attention is occupied by the 
content (the ideas that are coming to the surface for expres- 
sion), while the technique (the writing, spelling, punctuation, 
etc.) is, or should be, removed to the margin of consciousness. 
In the dictation exercise these relative positions are reversed. 
The content comes to the pupil ready-made ; he has to think 
only of the form. 

In addition to its value in teaching and testing technicalities, 
the dictation exercise, if rightly managed, builds up, also, the 
power of sustained attention and concentration. Its never 
failing effect of restoring quiet in a restless class is an every- 
day evidence of its power to do this. Its value, in developing 
the power of concentration, however, depends very largely upon 
the way the teacher handles the exercise. The dictation may 
be too long ; it may be uninteresting to the pupils ; it may be 



2 g INTRODUCTION 

dictated poorly — indistinctly, too fast, too slowly, or with 
repetitions. Dictation is an exercise that requires as much care 
in preparation and skill in execution as any other kind of 
written composition. It is utterly useless in the hands of a 
teacher who because she has no other work prepared decides 
to "give them a little dictation". She had better send to the 
office for the graphophone. 

The dictation exercise is useful also in developing the 
power of self-criticism, because of the opportunity it affords 
pupils to correct their Own papers in every minute detail by 
comparing them with the teacher's blackboard copy (uncovered 
after the writing) or the printed original. No exercises are 
more important than exercises in which the pupil corrects his 
own written work. Careful and intelligent criticism of his own 
work fixes correct habits and develops a habit of discrimination 
which helps him to undertake new work more confidently and 
to execute it more accurately. The dictation exercise is an 
especially good starting point for training in self-correction, 
because here the field of criticism is limited to a small number 
of points, all of which have to do with the mechanics of writing, 
and all of which, besides, are arbitrarily determined by the 
matter dictated. A formula for correction, suited to the grade, 
may be written upon the board, or upon a card which each 
pupil has on his desk. Such a formula contains (let us say) 
the following points : 

i. Indenting the paragraph. 5. Comma. 

2. Capitals. 6. Quotation marks. 

3. Periods. 7. Spelling. 

4. Apostrophe. 

The pupils are instructed at first to look through their 
papers for one kind of a mistake at a time, until they have 
gone through the list. They correct each error as they find it. 
In this way not many errors will escape them. After a while 
they will outgrow the need of the formula as a correction 
chart ; but at the beginning it serves a very useful purpose. 
It helps to systematize the correction work, and impresses upon 



INTRODUCTION 



29 



the pupil's mind, more effectively than talking commonly can, 
what the big matters of written technique are. 

In order to prevent any false notion as to the proper place 
<>f dictation work, teachers should bear in mind that it is an 
exercise which is almost wholly mechanical, and that no amount 
of dictation alone will make good writers. It is concerned 
with mechanical correctness alone. It is not of much value as a 
teaching exercise. Its chief value is in testing, not in teaching. 
It is not even a safe test of the knowledge of language forms. 
The proof of a pupil's mastery of the mechanics is not a 
correctly written dictation lesson, but his habitual observance 
of these matters in his daily writing. The pupil who begins all 
the sentences of a dictation paragraph with a capital and ends 
them with a period, may in his free writing display a gross 
lack of "the sentence feeling''. The cadence of the teacher's 
voice and the natural pause which follows the close of a 
dictated sentence give him the cue as to when a period is 
required and where a capital must be employed. 

The same is true in a lesser degree in respect to the other 
points of technique. Teachers, therefore, will make a mistake 
if they think they can teach correctness by much use of the 
dictation exercise. It is a good thing, if rightly used. But it 
must be used with moderation and with the full knozdedge 
that its chief value is to test the result of the teaching of xhe 
mechanics. 

Teachers are inclined sometimes to give an undue amount 
of dictation, because their class happens to be poorly grounded 
on the mechanics, and they postpone original work until a 
satisfactory condition obtains with respect to their pupil's grasp 
of technique. This is a double mistake. Correctness cannot 
be produced from much use of the dictation exercise, because 
the kind of correctness it teaches cannot be depended upon to 
carry over into the pupil's free writing. Moreover, to postpone 
original writing until the technique has been fully mastered is 
a violation of a vital principle of composition teaching, which 
is that the motive for the mastery of form must come from 
the pupil's interest in a real and living content. To drill for a 
long time for correctness is death to all interest. To permit 



3o 



INTRODUCTION 



children to write without regard to form is quite as irrational. 
They must be trained simultaneously to develop the power of 
self-expression and the knowledge and the desire to express 
themselves on paper in accordance with the established rules 
of correct writing. To do this well, as has been said before, 
is the real test of the good teacher of written composition. 

Copying is useful, as an occasional exercise, to train pupils 
in careful observation and exact expression. These are qualities 
sufficiently rare in grown-up people to suggest the need of some 
organized effort upon the part of the school to develop in 
children the power to see things straight and to report them 
straight. It is the experience of the Civil Service examiners 
that more people fail in the copying test than in any other. 
The standard of copying in all grades is exactness itself, though 
the matter presented in the lower grades should, of course, be 
much shorter and simpler than that which is given to older 
pupils to copy. The mere act of copying from time to time 
will not lead anywhere. Children must be taught right habits- 
of copying. In the second grade, for example, the pupil should 
be taught to look at the whole word and then write the whole 
word, not to copy a letter or two, then look at the word again, 
and copy two or three more letters. Even in the lower grades, 
the smallest unit should be the word. As soon after as 
possible, children should learn to look at the whole sentence^ 
and instead of copying it word by word, looking back each 
time to the printed page, they should copy a whole phrase at a 
time. Later on the pupils should take in the whole sentence at 
one glance, and produce it without referring to the copy. 

Selections for copying for all grades should be interesting,, 
and in the higher grades they should have real literary quality. 
National songs and selections frequently repeated orally (e. g. r 
the salute to the flag) are suitable material for copying. It is 
notorious that children are seldom able to write such things 
correctly. This is because the words are mostly learned by ear.. 

A time limit should be set to exercises in copying, if a 
pupil's power of observation and accuracy are to be rightly/ 



INTRODUCTION 



31 



measured. A teacher cannot measure the power of all the 
individuals in her class if some are given twice as long as 
others to finish the same exercise. Above the fourth grade, 
work in copying should be required of those pupils only who 
have not become rapid and accurate copyists. A copying test 
should be given three or four times during each year above the 
fourth grade to determine who need to continue the work and 
who may be excused from it. This test should be timed, and 
the selection should be longer than can be done in the time 
allowed, so that the speed and accuracy of every pupil can be 
rated after the method of the Courtis tests. Any exercise in 
copying that does not keep every child on the tiptoe of alertness 
defeats its only purpose. 

Children should be given material in their books to copy. 
They should not be asked to write from copy on the blackboaul. 



PART TWO. 

ASSIGNMENT OF WORK BY GRADES. 



FIRST GRADE. 

(The ivork of the First Grade is entirely oral.) 

I. Aims. 

To encourage free talk about things that children are 
interested in. 

To secure clear articulation and correct forms in every- 
day speech. 

To lead children always to use the sentence in talking and 
in telling stories. 

Children's talk should be free, spontaneous, and hearty. 
While encouraging self-expression, it is the teacher's task to 
guide and control the speech, to prevent mere babbling, and to 
make the exercise a pleasure to both listener and talker. 

With regard to ability to express themselves, . an average 
class will be found to be divided into the garrulous, the 
monosyllabic, and the inarticulate. The garrulous must not 
be suppressed, but directed, — -"Tell me one thing about your 
doll." The monosyllabic must be encouraged to expand a word 
into a sentence ; next, to give two sentences, and finally, to tell 
the whole story. The inarticulate will soon follow the leaders 
and take part in this work ; they form the rear guard here as in 
all other kinds of school work. 

II. Topics. 

Child's experiences at home ; — helping mother, father ; 
playthings ; pets ; holiday and Saturday good times. 



FIRST GRADE 



33 



Child's activities at school ; — helping teacher, playmates ; 
on the playground ; the reading lesson ; dramatization ; story 
reproduction ; picture lessons ; games ; holidays. 

Observations of nature ; — flowers, birds, animals ; the 
seasons with their changes in earth, sky and air. 

Stories read by the teacher or by the children. 

First, as sources of material for oral composition, should 
come the child's own experience and observation. Second in 
importance comes the story told by the teacher, or read in class 
by the child himself. Not all stories, however, are fit for 
reproduction, — the short, simple story, with a clear beginning, 
a related middle, and a definite end is best. The first conception 
of orderly arrangement will come unconsciously to children by 
developing these three divisions in their reproduction. 

III. Illustrations, 

A number of illustrations are given here to show what an 
interesting variety of oral work can be developed from the 
above mentioned sources and to indicate the general character 
of the oral work that should be sought after in the first grade. 
They are not put here to be drilled upon and memorized by 
children. They are illustrations pure and simple, and are not at 
all intended as subject matter to be learned by heart. 

/. Suggestions for developing, guiding, and controlling first 
efforts: 

Illustration : 

i. "Mollie had a birthday she was six she had a party I 
was there and I wore my new blue dress and we had ice cream." 
Teacher: — "Tell me one thing about Mollie's birthday." 

2. A suggestion from the teacher — (given on Friday). 
"Tomorrow will be Saturday. I expect to take a walk. I 

think I shall see some little squirrels." 

"Who is going to walk? What do you expect to see?" 

3. A report from the teacher — (given on Monday). 

"I went to walk on Saturday. I saw four little squirrels 
playing together." 

"Who went to walk? What did you see? Tell me one thing." 



34 



FIRST GRADE 

4. Teacher : — "This is a bright, pleasant day. What do you 
like to do on such days ? Tell me three things." 

Child : — -"This is a bright pleasant day. 

I like to roll my hoop. 

My dog likes to run with me." 

5. Teacher: — "The weather is growing warmer every day. 
The birds are coming back. Tell me what one you saw first. Tell 
me what he is doing." 

Child : — "The weather is growing warmer every day. 

The birds are coming back. 

I saw the robin first. 

He is getting ready to build a nest." 

6. Teacher : — "I saw three little boys playing horse in the ■ 
street this morning. They seemed to enjoy it very much." 

What do you like to play best? 

Tell how you play. 

Tell who plays with you." 

Suggestive talk on child's experiences at home. 
HELPING. 

In vacation, I helped my mother make four beds every day. 

First, we turned the mattress. 

Then we put on the sheets and spread. 

We made it look very smooth. 

Mother said I saved her many steps. 

PETS. 

I have a canary. 

He takes a bath every day. 

Then he dries himself in the sun. 

PLAYTHINGS. 

My doll has a little bedroom. 
It has a bed and a table. 
She has a little kitchen, too. 
There is a stove in it. 

HOLIDAY. 

This is the month of May. 

There are thirty-one days in May. 

Memorial Day comes on the thirtieth. 

SATURDAY. 

Saturday I played soldier with my brothers. 
My big brother was the captain. 
The baby carried the flag: 
I beat the drum. 



FIRST GRADE -- 

3. Suggestive talk on child's activities at school. 
READING. 

The little old woman made a gingerbread boy. 

He ran away from her and from the little old man. 

But he couldn't run away from the fox. 

Boy Blue always wore blue clothes. 

One day, he fell fast asleep under a haycock. 

His sheep got into the meadow. 

His cows got into the corn. 

DRAMATIZATION. 

The grasshopper played all summer long. 
He had no food when winter came. 
He asked Lady Ant for some of hers. 
But she wouldn't give him any. 

STORY REPRODUCTION. 

The crow said, "I am so thirsty! 
I have had no water for a long time. 
I shall die pretty soon, I think. 
Ah ! there is a pitcher. 
Now I shall get a drink." 

PICTURE. 

I am a soldier boy. 
I am going to war. 
I am going to fight. 
I am taking my gun. 

GAMES. 

I like to play "Squirrel". 

We all stand in a ring. 

One girl is the squirrel and runs around the ring. 

Another tries to catch the squirrel before she gets into her place. 

It is fun to chase the squirrel. 

4. Suggestive talk on Observations of Nature. 
FLOWERS. 

I picked some purple asters last Sunday. 
I brought them to school on Monday. 
I gave them to my teacher. 

BIRDS. 

I saw a robin this morning. 

He went hopping along. 

I said, "How do you do?" 

He just shook his tail and flew away. 



36 FIRST GRADE 

ANIMALS. 

I have a black kitty. 
She loves to catch mice. 
I like to play with her. 

TREES. 

I wish I were an elm tree ! 

The wind would set my leaves to dancing. 

The birds would build their nests in my branches. 

SNOW. 

The snow is falling. 
The flakes are white. 
They are like stars. 
Let us catch some. 

WIND. 

The wind called the little leaves. 
The red ones came. 
The yellow ones came, too. 
Then they all played together. 

APRIL. 

April is here. 

See how bright and clear the sky is ! 

See how green the grass is ! 

I am glad April is here. 



IV. Preparation For Written Work. 

The seat work called for by both of the reading systems 
used in our schools is really the foundation for future written 
work, in that it constantly gives practice, in the construction of 
sentences, in the placing of capital letters at the beginning of 
sentences and proper names, and in the placing of the closing 
period or question mark. 

After the work of the initial stage of matching single 
words has been done, children should be required to make the 
full rhyme from the rhyme card or the complete sentence from 
the teacher's model on the blackboard. Here the opportunity 
occurs to correct any tendency to omit words, by having the 
reading of what has actually been made compared with what 
was intended to be made. 



FIRST GRADE 



37 



Next, children should he furnished with alphabet letter 
cards, and required to construct simple sentences, connected 
with the reading, from the teacher's blackboard model, using 
capitals and closing marks correctly. 

During the last half of the year, simple, original sentences 
should be required, first using the word cards, and next, using 
the alphabet letters. This gives the child full responsibility for 
right use of capitals and closing marks. 

Illustrations of Scat Work as preparation for Written Work. 

ALDINE CLASSES. 

The squirrel wants to play with me. 
The little squirrel is glad. 
The little squirrel jumps for joy. 
Little squirrel, jump for joy. 
Run, little squirrel, run ! 
Play in the tree, little squirrel. 
The little squirrel plays in the rain. 

TREADWELL CLASSES. 
A boy had a goat. 
He ran away. 
He wanted some grass. 
He would not go home. 
He would not go for the buy. 
He would not go for the rabbit. 
He did go for the bee. 

Illustration of child's name and address: 

Alary Salitra, 

15 Common St., 

Lawrence, Mass. 

Before leaving the grade, children should make, with 
alphabet letters, their own names and addresses, and the name 
of their school. In addition, they should have acquired the 
habit of placing: 

A capital letter at the beginning of their card-constructed 
sentences, in composing the names of persons, and in their use 
of the pronoun I. 

A period or question mark at the close of sentences. 



38 FIRST GRADE 

V. Errors of Speech. 

Re-read the chapter in the appendix on "Common Errors 
of Speech", to get a clear understanding of the principles and 
the methods that teachers should follow in training away the 
errors common to the speech of children. 

This work should not be begun too early in the first grade. 
The teacher should, of course, take note from the very first of 
the errors made by the children, but she should be content for 
a while with gently and patiently substituting the right ex- 
pression for the wrong one. For the important thing at the start 
is to secure spontaneity and free expression. After a little 
while the incorrect expression may safely be made a basis for 
special drill. The expressions drilled upon should, of course, 
ibe those which appear most frequently in the actual speech of 
the children. The drills on any expression, once begun, should 
l)e constant. No reasons need be given by the teacher to show 
why this form is right and the other wrong. What the child 
needs is plenty of opportunity for repetition of the correct form. 
'The "language game" described and illustrated in the Appendix 
provides a happy method of securing the reiteration of the 
form the teacher may desire to impress. There is no end to 
the number of games that the ingenious teacher can plan to 
meet a single incorrect expression, e. g., the 'T seen" habit. 

The errors to be attacked in grade one are not many, but 
they are deep rooted in the speech of the children, and will 
require the untiring efforts of the teacher to get rid of them. 
They divide into four groups: (i) verb errors; (2) pronoun 
errors; (3) colloquialisms; (4) mispronunciations. The teacher 
in the primary grades, however, is not in her teaching 10 make 

, any reference to these distinctions. They are so grouped 
throughout the course to suggest how the teacher is herself to 
classify the errors which she hears made frequently by her 
pupils and which are not listed here. Every teacher should 
supplement the printed errors by others that she has observed 

■ and noted. She should first, however, study the list of errors 
that are printed in the grades below and above her own. It is 
not worth while to attack some errors until later in the course. 



FIRST GRADE ,q 

On the other hand, there are some errors that must be rooted 
out in the low grades, if they are to be rooted out at all. 
In the first grade, work to correct the following errors : 

I seen him. I dune it. 

I come to school. I run all the way. 

He he's sick. He don't want to. 

He ain't here. I knowed it. 



Me and him did it. It was me. 

My father, he said — 



Look't This after. 

He took it off me. Gimme that. 

Lemme see it. I ain't got no book. 

Once they was a man who — 

VI. Comments and Cautions. 

Do not allow a voluble child to monopolize unduly the time 
of the class. Do not allow an impulsive child to relate some 
personal experience which is of small interest to other children. 
Time is too valuable to be wasted in this way. The talkative 
child must be wisely restrained, and the uncommunicative child 
encouraged. 

Insist on clear utterances and a natural (not a schoolroom) 
tone of voice. 

Don't interrupt the talker if you can help it, and correct 
in such a way that the child will be conscious only of the help. 
It is very harmful at this stage to arouse self -consciousness or 
a feeling of restraint. 

Do all you can to cure the "and" habit. 

Children are very imitative. Consequently it is necessary 
that the teacher should carefully watch her own use of 



40 



FIRST GRADE 



English. Without being too prim, she should insistently guard 
against slang, faulty idioms, grammatical errors, and provincial 
forms. She should cultivate habits of perfect enunciation, 
flexibility of tone, and a varied vocabulary. The teacher who 
cannot and does not talk well herself has no business to try 
to teach children to talk well. 

Train children to drop the voice at the end of the sentence. 



FIRST GRADE ^ x 

SECOND GRADE. 

ORAL. 

(Four-fifths of the language time in the second grade is 
devoted to oral language.) 

I. Aims. 

To secure more freedom and fluency in talking. 

To lead children to tell what they have to say in m 
orderly manner, and to keep to the point. 

To increase the power to use correct speech without 
rousing self-consciousness or a feeling of restraint. 

To make children feel that distinct speech and a natural, 
pleasant tone of voice are as necessary to good talking as are 
interesting things to talk about. 

To deepen the feeling for the sentence — never to let an 
"incomplete" sentence pass. Encourage use of the question 
sentence and the exclamation, for variety and effectiveness, 
without naming them or formally distinguishing them from the 
"telling" sentence. 

II. Suggested Sources. 

Child's experiences at home : Helping father, mother, 
sisters and brothers. 

Talks on how to act helpfully and politely at home, at 
school, on the playground, and in public places. 

Observation of the nature world. 

Holidays. 

Games. 

Stories. Stories selected for reproduction should be short 
and simple. At the beginning of the term, those which bring 
out clearly the beginning, the middle, and the close should be 
used. Later in the term, children will be able to reproduce 
larger units, if they are helped to observe what happened first, 
what next, and so forth. Events may be told in turn by 
different children, and finally the whole story reproduced by 
one child. 



42 



FIRST GRADE 



Pictures. Pictures furnish admirable material for oral 
language. They should be full of life and action. 

III. Illustrations. 

(Note: — It is to be understood that these are illustrations 
of the kind of oral work that second grade children should be 
trained to do. They are not put here as subject matter for 
children to be drilled upon and to repeat from memory.) 

Using the material offered by the class, teacher and children 
should work together, at first, developing an orderly arrange- 
ment of ideas and interesting ways of presenting them. 

Children should later be encouraged to give original 
sentences. The teacher and class together should offer sug- 
gestions for improving the order and arrangement of the 
sentences to make them more interesting. These should be 
written on the board by the teacher, to serve as a copying 
lesson later. 

EXPERIENCES AT HOME. 
I take care of the geranium. 
I water it every day. 

Yesterday I spilled some water on the floor. 
The pitcher was too full. 

NATURE. 

Walter's garden is in the back yard. 

He planted morning glory seeds and tulip bulbs. 

The morning glory seeds have come up. 

The tulips will be in blossom in a week. 

STORY REPRODUCTION. 

A thirsty crow saw some water in a pitcher. 

He could not get it. 

Then the wise bird dropped many little stones into the pitcher. 

The water rose and the crow took his drink. 

PICTURES. 

I am Captain John. 

Do you see the sword in my hand ? 

My army is marching. 

"Left, right, left, right" says the drum. 

The last boy is carrying the flag. 



SECOND GRADE *-, 

We are playing Blind Man's Buff. 
My brother Max is the blind man. 
I'm hiding behind the post. 
There ! he's coming ! he's coming ! 
I hope he won't catch me ! 

GAMES. 

There are swings on the Common. 
I like to swing very much. 

After I have been swinging for a while, I get out and give 
someone else a chance. 

ANIMALS. 

I have a little kitten. 

Her name is Tricks. 

Tricks is very cute. 

She pulls at my shoe laces, and at my dress. 

She always climbs up in my lap. 

Would you like to see my kitty? 

HOW TO TREAT A VISITOR. 

Yesterday, we had a visitor in our room. 
When she came in, Edith gave her a chair. 
When we read, we did our best. 
We like to have people visit our class. 



IV. Common Errors of Speech. 

The teacher should read over the chapter on "Common 
Errors of Speech" in the Appendix. She should also re-read 
the notes printed under this heading in the first grade. Keep 
in mind the groupings of the errors, as there explained, Dut 
do not discuss the "grammar" of them with the pupils. Study 
the list of errors in all the grades, but confine your work 
mostly to those of your grade and the grade below. They will 
keep you busy. Use some "language game" every day. You 
will find plenty of them in the chapter on "The Language 
Game" in the Appendix. If they do not suit you, make up 
some of your own. Language games may be played at any 
time during the day, — to fill up a few odd minutes here and 
there, or as a change after a period of concentrated work in 
number or phonics. 

In the second grade, work on these errors : 



44 



SECOND GRADE 



We sung it. 

We et it. 

I writed my name. 

My pencil is broke. 

You was afraid. 

I can't find it no place. 

I ain't got no book. 



I done it. 

He knowed me. 

I seen it. 

It's tore. 

I brought it home. 

We drawed a robin. 

He hadn't ought to go. 

He don't need a book. 



He did it tiisself. 
Me and him went. 



Them kind ain't good. 



I got it off a him. 
Are they any school? 
She told on him. 
Look't here. 



He is the one what did it. 
He didn't give me none. 
I was to home. 



1 wash me own self. 
He would of gone. 
I hat to go. 
They was six hooks. 



Gimme that pencil. 
I donno. 
I'm thinkin. 



V. Comments and Cautions. 

Avoid rousing self-consciousness by too many criticisms. 

Insist on careful pronunciation of final syllables ending 
in g, t, d. 

Remember that "so" and "then" are habits as bad as the 
"and" habit. 

Banish the "run-on" sentence from your children's talk, 
if you can. 



Teach children to drop the voice at the ends of their 
sentences. 



SECOND GRADE 45 

PREPARATION FOR WRITING. 

During the first half of the year the alphabet card seat 
work, started in the first grade, should be reviewed and ex- 
tended. 

In review, children should first make sentences from the 
teacher's model on the blackboard. These sentences may be 
based on the reading lessons, or on the topics discussed in the 
oral composition period. The pupil's work should always be 
inspected by the teacher. Her method of correcting faults 
should be such as to teach the children to correct their own, 
and to establish the tendency to look their work over for 
correction before the teacher inspects it. They should be 
trained to look it over first to see if all of the words are there ; 
they should look again, to see if the closing marks are correctly 
used. 

In extending the work, children should be required to 
make sentences independent of a model. These may be re- 
production from memory of those occurring in a reading 
lesson, in a preceding oral composition lesson, or they may be 
original. Such work throws upon the class full responsibility 
for right spelling and correct use of capitals and closing marks. 
But whatever the source of these sentences, the teacher must 
guard against incorrect spelling, and if she finds it necessary, 
should assign the topic herself, and prevent misspelling by 
placing on the blackboard for children's use, while working, 
words of whose spelling the class may not be certain. The 
work of inspection should be continued, and the iiabit of self- 
correction strengthened by requiring children to look over the 
work before the teacher does, once for omission of words ; 
again, for correct use of punctuation and capitals ; and a third 
time for correct spelling. 

WRITTEN. 

( Note : — Written work in the second grade does not begin 
until the second half of the year. Only one-fifth of the langu ige 
time is given to written work.) 



46 SECOND GRADE 

I. Aims* 

To have the written work grow naturally out of the oral 
work through copying the improved sentences which were 
prepared by teacher and pupil together in the oral period. 

To teach the few simple technicalities involved in putting 
the oral work into written form. 

To develop power to write correctly several related sen- 
tences on a given topic, without the teacher's co-operation, but 
always under her supervision. 

To develop the power of thinking out the sentence be- 
fore writing it. 

IL Lines of Work. 

i. SENTENCES. 

a. Copying from the blackboard, the sentences prepared 
with the teacher's co-operation during the oral period. 

b. Writing the same from dictation, each child comparing 
his finished product with the teacher's correct copy on the board. 

c. Writing on the blackboard several related sentences. 
These may be on a suggested subject, or original. They should, 
be read by the writer, and the listening class should be trained 
to comment on the interesting quality, and notice if the arrange- 
ment is good. 

The writer should explain his use of punctuation marks 
somewhat as follows : 



*'I have a little kitten. Her name is Tricks. Would you like 
to see her?" 

"I is always written as a capital when it is alone. There is 
a period after the first sentence, because it tells something. Her 
begins with a capital letter, because it is the first word in the 
sentence. Tricks begins with a capital letter, because it is the 
name of the kitten. There is a period after Tricks, because the 
sentence tells something. Would begins with a capital letter, be- 
cause it is the first word of the sentence. There is a question 
mark after the sentence, because it asks a question." 

d. Writing occasionally from dictation a few sentences tO' 
test the grasp of technical points. 



SECOND GRADE 



47 



e. Writing occasionally the reproduction of a brief story,, 
as a test of the pupils' grasp of the points of the story in their 
logical sequence. 

III. Suggested Topics For Sentence Writing - . 

These will be found grouped under Section II in the outline 
for oral composition in this grade. 

IV. Technicalities. 

i. Capitals. Beginning sentences, names of persons, of 
places, days of the week, months of the year, the name of the 
school, the letters I and O. 

2. Period. At the close of the telling sentence. After 
the abbreviations Mr., Mrs., St. 

3. Question mark at the close of a question sentence. 

4. Punctuation marks used in the writing of the pupil's 
name and address, as learned through the alphabet card work 
during the first year and the first half of the second year. 

V. Words For Special Spelling Drill. 

Note : — Re-read the chapter on "The Misspelling of Com- 
mon Words" in the Preface. 



again 


knew 


any 


know 


asked 


leaving 


buy 


loving 


can't 


making 


coming 


many 


cried 


much 


does 


near 


don't 


off 


dropped 


once 


drowned 


only 


fairy 


running 


first 


school 


goes 


shining 


having 


some 


heard 


sure 


higher 


taking 



their 

there 

they 

too 

tried 

using 

very 

want 

went 

when 

where 

which 

whole 

whose 

won't 

write 



4 g SECOND GRADE 

VI. Second Year Standards. 

The following groups of sentences are printed here to 
indicate about the sort of "written composition" the ordinary 
child should be able to write at the end of the second year. 
Some second grade pupils will be capable of writing longer and 
better ones. A few will not be able to write as well as the 
printed standards require. The majority of the pupils, how- 
ever, should, if given a subject they feel like writing about, 
be able to produce three or four sentences, somewhat like the 
ones printed below. They should be able to do this with a 
fair degree of facility, and with no assistance from the teacher 
except what is derived from the oral preparation. The sen- 
tences should show some sense of sequence, and the desire to 
be interesting. They should be invariably correct in the matter 
of capitals and ending marks. The pupil's power should always 
be measured by the first writing, not by a corrected and re- 
written copy. 

Mabel's Teddy Bear is brown. 
He has black eyes. 
They are always open. 
He wears a pink bow. 

We saw a hand organ this morning. 
A monkey was sitting on it. 
He held out a red cap. 
I put a cent in it. 

My name is 

I live at street. 

I go to the school. 

The principal's name is 

My teacher's name is Miss 

We went to the circus. 
We saw some pretty horses. 
The clowns made us all laugh. 

This is a rainy day. 

We can't go out at recess. 

We will play games in the school room. 

We saw the moon last night. 
It looked like a boat. 
It sailed in the blue sky. 



SECOND GRADE ,g 

1 cut a big Christmas Tree out of green paper. 
I cut some little candles out of red paper. 
I put them on the tree. 

Our school begins at half past eight. 

I always get there early. 

We do not like to have children late. 

When the bell for fire drill rings, we stop work. 
We leave the room quickly. 
We do not talk or play. 

Mary had a birthday, 
Her mother gave her a ring. 
It has a blue stone. 
It fits her third finger. 

VIL Comments and Cautions. 

Keep the sentences simple. If you do, "and" and "but" 
and "so" will not have a chance to get rooted in the child's 
written language. It is bad enough to have to deal with them 
in his oral language. 

The amount of writing in the second grade should be small. 
There is no gain in urging children to write much before their 
experience in writing is sufficient to save them from a multitude 
of errors. 

Encourage free expression in the writing. Praise every 
sign of originality. By being too critical of his written sen- 
tences you may kill the pupil's desire to write at all. 



^o THIRD GRADE 

THIRD GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(Four-fifths of the language time in the third grade i? 
given to oral work.) 

I. Aims. 

To secure more orderly talking than in previous grades ; 
to keep to the point ; to tell things in the right order of time 
and event. 

To teach children to think a sentence through before 
speaking it. 

To form the habit of speaking every word distinctly, of 
making one's self heard, of using a natural tone of voice. 

To train the pupils to be good listeners. 

II. Suggested Sources. 

HOME LIFE. 

Topics bearing upon helpfulness at home, and in all 
relations with playmates, younger children, the old and feeble, 
animals; matters of personal appearance and conduct. 

SCHOOL LIFE. 

Discussion in simple terms of the necessity and value of 
co-operating with others ; developing a class pride, a school 
spirit ; helpfulness to teacher shown by promptness, obedience, 
care of school property within and without the building, good 
manners, courtesy to visitors. 

COMMUNITY LIFE. 

The development of civic pride ; ways of helping the 
street, fire and health departments ; ways of preventing accidents 
on the street, on street cars ; ways of preventing quarreling at 
play ; how to be a good neighbor ; behavior in public places. 

NATURE LIFE. 

Observation of seasonal changes in nature, bird and animal 



THIRD GRADE qi 

life. The teacher who loves nature and knows intimately her 
work, or who will set herself to learn a little of it, has an 
exhaustless store of subjects for oral language, even though 
her pupils live in the most populous tenement district of a 
mill city. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Saturday good times; Sunday walks at different seasons; 
holidays ; description of toys ; of pets ; games played at home,' 
at school, indoors, out of doors; the policeman, fireman, post- 
man and their work ; the milkman, grocer, butcher, shoemaker, 
carpenter, and their work; directions for making something, 
for playing a game; short stories for reproduction; pictures 
(choose those that suggest a story rather than those that sug- 
gest description of object seen). 

III. Suggestions as to Use of the Material in Section II. 

i. To develop from a single topic several different 
groups of interesting sentences arranged in good order. 

Illustration : — 

"The Fun That Spring Days Bring." 
(Sentences contributed by the children.) 
Flowers are gathered in the meadow by girls. 
Girls play hop-scotch. 
Boys fly kites and play marbles. 
Sometimes boys go fishing. 
Every boy plays ball. 

Showing variety and good order in the arrangement 
of the above sentences, made by individual pupils : 

No. i. 
What fun we have in Spring ! 
Girls jump rope. 
Boys fly kites and play marbles. 

No. 2. 
How glad I am it is Spring! 
Little girls play hop-scotch. 
Every boy plays ball. 



52 THIRD GRADE 



No. 3. 
Oh ! How nice Spring is ! 
Little girls gather flowers in the meadows. 
Boys go fishing. 



2. To improve the quality of the sentence through 
imitation of a model given by the teacher. 

Teacher's Model. 

The First Snowstorm. 
What a stormy day! The snow is piling up in drifts. It 
comes in at the windows. I have to play in the house. 

Child's Imitation. 

A Winter Day. 
(Modeled on the above.) 
What a cold day it is ! Jack Frost has come at last. He 
sends the leaves flying. I have to play in the house, or he will 
bite my nose. 

Teacher's Model. 

The Humming Bird. 
Can you see that little bird? He is a little humming bird 
and he comes to swing in my tree every morning. When the wind 
blows and the branches sway, he is very happy. 

Children's Imitations : 

The Robin. 
There is a little robin in the grass. How fat he is ! His 
breast is bright red. He sings very sweetly every morning. 

The Sparrow. 
There is. a sparrow on the topmost bough. He is building 
his nest. There he goes now to get some more straw. 

The Canary. 
At home we have a little canary. He has yellow and white 
feathers. His feathers are very smooth. He sings very sweetly. 

The Robin. 
Look at that baby robin! His mother is teaching him to 
fly. Look at him eating that worm ! 



THIRD GRADE 



53 



IV. Examples of Oral Composition. 

It is to be understood that these examples are to be con- 
sidered as illustrations only. They are not to be used as 
material for memorizing or for imitating in too slavish a 
fashion. They are put here as suggestions to teachers, and 
not as subject matter for children. 

HOME LIFE. 

I help my mother set the table every day. First, I put on 
the knives and forks. Next, I put on the spoons. Then I put the 
chairs up to the table. 

SCHOOL LIFE. 

Yesterday we made penwipers. We cut three circles out 
of cloth. The first one was small. The second was a little larger. 
The third was the largest of all. We fastened the three circles 
together with a brad. 

COMMUNITY LIFE. 

When I cross the street, I walk to the corner first. I look 
both ways. If a car or an auto is coming, I wait until it passes. 

My letter carrier wears a gray suit with brass buttons. He 
carries a leather bag over his shoulder. In this bag he puts the 
mail. He blows a whistle when he comes to the door. 

SATURDAY GOOD TIMES. 

Saturday morning, Annie and I played we were fairies. We 
made wings of paper for our dresses. We had a good time. 

HOLIDAYS. 

Christmas Day comes in two weeks. I have a quarter to 
spend for presents. I think I shall buy a glass for my mother to 
put flowers in. 

SOMETHING TO MAKE. 

Do you know how to make a Jack-o-lantern ? Take a big 
yellow pumpkin and cut off the top. Scoop out the inside clean. 
Then cut the eyes, nose, and mouth. Put a lighted candle inside, 
and put the top on again. 

STORY. 

The beautiful morning sunshine was streaming in at the 
window. Little Herbert saw it shining on a chair. He thought 
that if the sun was on it, no one could sit on it. He went for a 
towel. He tried to wipe the sunsh'ne off the chair. He rubbed 
and rubbed until he was tired and still the sunshine was there. 



54 THIRD GRADE 

STORY TO BE FINISHED. 

The Crow and The Pitcher. 

I am so thirsty! I have had no water to drink for a long 
time. If I do not find some water soon, I shall die. Ah, there 
is a pitcher. Perhaps 

PICTURES. 

Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel lived in a hollow tree. They had five 
little ones, who wore pretty gray coats. One day Jack Frost told 
Papa Squirrel that he would bring snow soon. Mr. Squirrel hur- 
ried home to tell the folks. He said they must gather plenty of 
food for the winter. The little squirrels got great heaps of grain 
and nuts in their home in the tree. Pretty soon down came the 
snow, but the squirrels did not care, for they had a good warm 
home and plenty to eat. 



V. Errors of Speech. 

The teacher should re-read the chapter on "Common 
Errors of Speech" in the Appendix, and the notes under this 
heading in the grades below and above her own. The grouping 
is the same always: (i) verb errors, (2) pronoun errors, 
(3) colloquialisms, (4) mispronunciations, but the teacher is 
not to mention grammatical distinctions. Right use of language 
comes from habit, not from knowledge of terms or rules. 
Speech forms come to the child largely through the ear. 
Repetition fixes the habit of speech, whether it be good or bad. 
Speech is a matter of the spinal cord rather than of the mind. 
When the child said /'Can I have a piece of pie?" "May I!" 
corrected the mother. Then the child said, "May I have a 
piece of pie?" and the mother answered, "Yes, you can." The 
knowing mind said "may", the spinal cord said "can" ; therefore, 
the tongue said "can". 

The "language game" (see Appendix) is the most effective 
method of getting the right forms to "sound right" to the 
child. Use the games every day, but do not work a few of 
them to death. When the "game" spirit wears off, half *ne 
good is gone. 



THIRD GRADE 



55 



I done it. 

I et the apple. 

I seen him take it. 

Leave him do it. 

I ain't got no book. 

He don't know. 

Has John went yet ? 



I seen it. 

That ain't mine. 

He never give me a pen. 

My pencil is broke. 

1 trun the core away. 

She brnng it to school. 

You was down there. 



Here is yourn. 
Me aunt is sick. 



Him and me done it. 
Them are mine. 



I'm after doing my work. 

Do like I did. 

These kind are bad. 

This is the boat what I went on. 



Can I get a pen off him?' 

I was to school. 

I am all better. 

I can't find it nowhere. 

Sec what you're at. 



My mother is worser. 

The boy was almost drownded. 

My teacher's name is Mrs .... 



Be you a-goin' ? 
( '.inime a cent. 
I was late, 'cause I went 
to the store. 



They was nobody to be seen. 



I hurted me. 



VI. Comments and Cautions. 

The teacher should do as little talking as possible. 1 he 
exercise is not to train her, but her pupils. 

Get rid of the "stringy" sentence. 

The oral language period is not for entertainment, but for 
the training in language power. All children, therefore, should 
take part, not merely the voluble children or those who are 
naturally good talkers. 

Never let the conversation drag aimlessly to no destination. 
As soon as interest begins to fail, the topic has served its pur- 
pose, and another should be taken. 



It is of no use to say good things unless one speaks loud 
enousrh to be heard. 



56 



THIRD GRADE 



Faultfinding and interruption to correct errors discourage. 
Sympathy and patience bring improvement from the slowest. 

Remember that it is not enough for a child to say another's 
work is "good", "interesting", or "I like it". He must tell why. 
Expect every child to listen attentively, that he may be able to 
speak definitely of the work done. 

Constant practice in oral expression in the lower grades 
will make the correct formal expression on paper later 
a comparatively easy task. For the child who has learned to 
think clearly — and no one can talk intelligently without thinking 
clearly — will find little difficulty in mastering the mechanical 
art of putting that thought into writing. 

Teach your children to drop the voice at the end of the 
sentence. 

WRITTEN. 

(Only one-fifth of the language time in the third grade is 
given to zvritten zvork.) 

I. Aims, 

To make the written work a natural outgrowth of the 
oral work by having children copy sentences prepared by the 
class and teacher in the previous oral lesson. 

Using these sentences as models, to develop power to 
produce original work on similar topics. 

To develop power to write independently a few interesting 
sentences on a given topic. 

To make habitual the correct use of the technicalities 
assigned to the grade. 

II. Lines of Work. 

Copying original sentences which have been written on the 
blackboard by the teacher, after discussion and criticism by 
class. No sentence should be thus written until it is found 



THIRD GRADE cy 

to be well constructed. The group of sentences should next 
be studied for improvement in order and arrangement. 

Writing the same from dictation. Each child should learn 
to correct his own paper by comparing it with the teacher's 
correct copy on the blackboard. 

Original, independent work should be done, based upon 
the model worked out by class and teacher in co-operation. 

Blackboard work should be done often, several children 
being sent to the board at once to write a few connected sen- 
tences on a given subject. There should be no formal prepara- 
tion for this work by discussion and criticism as heretofore. 

The direction should be : "Write about " In this way, 

the responsibility for producing well-constructed and interesting 
work lies wholly with the writer. Judgment may be formed as 
to his possession of sentence feeling, connectives, and other 
technicalities. Each should read his own production, giving 
the reason for the use of each capital and punctuation mark. 

Occasional exercises in dictation should be given for the 
purpose of furnishing practice in the use of the required tech- 
nical points, and for testing accuracy. In this work, children 
should be trained to close concentration during dictation. A 
sentence should be given but once. Repetition results in 
inattention. 

Occasional exercises should be given in reproducing stories 
that children have found interesting in the oral period. Four 
or five sentences should be the maximum requirement. Like 
other written work in this grade, the first work in reproduction 
should be copying the well-told story ; next, writing it from 
dictation. During the last half of the year, there should 
occasionally be independent writing of some short and simple 
well-liked story. 

III. Suggested Topics. 

The topics for oral composition suggested for this grnde 
are equally suitable for the written work. The teacher is 
therefore referred to the second section of the oral outline for 
this grade. 



58 



THIRD GRADE 



IV. Technicalities. 

Capital letter beginning sentences, names of persons, of 
places, days of the week, months of the year, the name of our 
state, our city, of child's own school. 

Period at the end of a telling sentence, after the abbrevia- 
tions of names of days, of months ; after Mr., Mrs., St., Mass. 

Question mark after questions. 

Exclamation mark after exclamations. 

V. Words For Special Spelling; Drill. 

(The words in italics are repeated from the second grade 
list.) 



asked 


making 


went 


buy 


shining 


when 


coming 


their 


which 


dropped 


there 


whose 


fairy 


they 


write 


heard 


too 


wrote 


know 


tried 




afraid 


February 


quite 


all right 


forty 


right 


almost 


friend 


Saturday 


already 


great 


speak 


always 


guess 


though 


beginning 


its 


together 


busy 


laughed 


truly 


children 


lose 


Tuesday 


clothes 


loose 


until 


color 


money 


Wednesday 


doctor 


month 


whose 


early 


none 


women 


easy 


often 


would 


enough 


people 


writing 


father 


please 





"VI. Written Standards. 

The following paragraphs are thought to represent a fair 
■standard of the kind and quality of written composition that 
•should be expected of children at the end of the third grade. 



THIRD GRADE eg 

They are all based upon topics which have been suggested as 
practicable for this grade. No one of the paragraphs is more 
than five sentences long. All of the sentences are simple 
sentences. Every paragraph contains a bit of personal interest. 
A few children in every class will be able to write longer 
and better compositions than the standard for the grade represents. 
They will be able to write longer sentences also. Gifted pupils 
like these should not be restrained by the limitations of the 
grade standard ; but they should be at all times held to strict 
account in matters of correct writing. A few children, on the 
other hand, will not be able to write as well as the standard. 
But the majority of every grade class should at the end 
of that year be able to write a paragraph of the character and 
length of those printed here, composed of sentences gram- 
matically complete, correctly capitalized and punctuated, and 
free from misspelled words. They should be able to do this 
without oral preparation. The first writing, it should be under- 
stood, is the measure of the pupil's power. The corrected and 
re-written copy is worthless as a standard of ability in written 
composition. 

HOME. 

Mother has been away a whole week. It is very lonesome 
without her. I wish she would come home. 

This is Mother's birthday. After breakfast we gave her our 
presents. Mine was a pretty bookmark. I made it in school. 

SCHOOL. 

Yesterday afternoon we played school. We all wanted to 
be the teacher. So we agreed to draw lots. I was the lucky one. 

Last Friday we had a spelling match. I spelled "beginning" 
wrong. I shall never spell it wrong again. 

Sometimes my teacher lets me stay after school. I clean 
the blackboard for her. I put the books in a neat pile. 

I think music is the best of all our school lessons. I like to 
sing the song about the rabbit. The Christmas songs are good, 
too. Sometimes I sing alone. 



60 THIRD GRADE 

IN GENERAL. 

I am a paper kite. I fly high above the earth. I can see the 
whole city. The houses look very small. The people seem to be 
one inch high. 

One day last week I saw something bright lying in the 
gutter. It looked just like a nickel. I stopped and picked it up. 
It was only a tin tag. 

This is how we play "Squirrel". First our teacher chooses 
a squirrel. Then we all put our heads on the desk. Next, the 
squirrel taps some child on the head. That child tries to catch 
the squirrel. 

REPRODUCTION. (There should be little of this.) 

Some birds were sick. A cat went to see them. He called 
himself a doctor. But the birds would not let him in. They did 
not want that kind of a doctor. 



VIL Comments and Cautions. 

In each grade stress is put upon a few things. The teacher 
should make sure that these are positively and usefully known.. 
Succeeding teachers must not let this knowledge and habit lapse. 

The fact that in the third grade the sentences are for the 
first time cast into the form of a paragraph, instead of each 
new sentence starting on a new line will tend to produce "the 
child's error" (see foreword on "The Sentence") upon the part 
of children who have not yet the "sentence habit" strongly 
established. Teachers in this grade must, therefore, make a 
good deal of this fundamental thing in writing English. The 
sentence idea, or sentence sense, is not an easy one for some 
children to get. Children must be taught early to distinguish 
between a sentence and a group of words that is not a sentence. 
There is no need of lugging in grammar to teach the distinction. 
It is the thought that tells the child what a sentence is, not 
subjects and predicates and other grammatical considerations. 

Pupils cannot too early be taught the habit of looking 
over all written work before handing it in, in order to correct 
their mistakes. 



THIRD GRADE 6l 

Keep the written sentences simple. Try to get a little 
variety in the beginnings of sentences, but don't expect 100 
much. Study the standards for the grade, and be satisfied if 
your pupils turn off sentences as good as those. 



62 FOURTH GRADE 

FOURTH GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(Three-fourths of the language time in the fourth grade is- 
given to oral work.) 

I. Aims. 

Training in speaking on one's feet cannot begin too early 
in the school course. The pupil's first efforts will be crude, 
and perhaps discouraging ; but it is only through continued 
practice under patient and sympathetic direction that the pupil 
can reach the ultimate state of ease and fluency. 

In this grade aim especially to secure clearness of thought. 
Try to teach them to distinguish between the unimportant and 
the important. Teach children to think over what they have 
to say before you let them talk. 

Teach your pupils these fundamental things : 
(i) To open their mouths when they speak. 

(2) To speak in a clear, low voice — low in the sense of 
being in the natural register of the child's voice, not 
in the high-pitched "school room" tone — yet loud 
enough to be heard distinctly in all parts of the room. 

(3) To sound final g's, t's, d's and th's, and to take pains 
to pronounce correctly such words as "children", 
"this afternoon", etc. 

II. Examples of Oral Composition. 

These examples of children's oral composition are intended 
to indicate about the kind of work fourth grade pupils should 
be able to do at the end of the year. The range of topics that 
may be used is as wide and as varied as are children's ex- 
periences. From their life at home, on the streets, in school; 
from their sports, amusements, duties, tasks ; from the things 
they have seen and heard and felt and done; from the things 
they have read and the things they imagine: from all these 
sources may be drawn an infinite variety of interesting material.. 



FOURTH GRADE 



6? 



The topics suggested for written composition in this course of 
study are just as good for oral composition as for written 
composition. Nor is the oral treatment so very much different 
in this grade from the treatment of the written topic. It is 
composition in just as true a sense as the written work, except 
that it is not put down on paper. Many times it is well to 
have a pupil write out any exceptionally interesting oral com- 
position that he has contributed. 

It is to be borne in mind that the power of children in 
oral composition runs considerably ahead of their power in 
written composition. In the examples a good many of ';he 
sentences are longer and more complex than in the written 
standards for this grade, which are still composed largely of 
simple sentences. Teachers must, of course, not allow the use 
of the longer sentence in the oral work if the pupils do not use 
it well. Bring everybody down to the use of simple sentences 
whose sentences incline toward looseness and awkwardness,, 
until he can be trusted with the longer sentence. At the same 
time do not hold to the simple sentences pupils who naturally 
use the longer sentence well. 

It is a more difficult thing to judge the excellence of 
spoken language than that of written language, because the 
impression of the former is so fleeting and so intangible. The 
teacher must, therefore, train herself to keep one ear open to 
the style of the pupil speaking, while the other is engaged in 
listening to the things he has to say. If every teacher could 
once or twice a year have a stenographer take down the oral 
compositions of her class and put them into type for her exactly 
as they were spoken, it would help her teaching of oral language 
more than anything else in the world. 

All of the following examples were taken from the actual 
oral work of children in the fourth grade. 

A Pet of Mine. 
I have a pet hen that I like very much. I call her the little 
red hen. At morning I feed and water her. At noon I run home 
as fast as I can to feed her. Every night before I go into the 
house, I look to see if she is safe. At night when I am in bed, 
I am thinking if she is safe. 



64 FOURTH GRADE 

My Garden. 
Last year, I had four beds of morning glories. I watered 
them every night. One night I saw some buds. I was glad then. 
So I put some strings up to my bedroom window. In two months 
they were up to the window. They made a sort of tent. Some of 
them were pink, and some were blue. They were very pretty. 



My Report Card. 
When I got home the first month with my card, my mother 
sighed. She said if I had "Whispers" again on my card, she 
would come up to school. I did not want her to, so I never 
whispered very much after that. Now it says "Good" every 
month. Last month, it said "Good work in reading and language". 



Saturday Good Times. 
On Saturday mornings, a girl and I go to a gymnasium 
class on Lawrence Street. We do folk dances and play games. 
Some of the folk dances we do are "The Shoemaker" and "See- 
Saw". We march and play different games. We have much fun. 
We begin about nine o'clock and stop at ten o'clock. There is 
another class with older girls in it. 

III. Common Errors of Speech. 

The teacher who has studied the lists of errors in the 
grades below the fourth (as she ought to do) will find many of 
them repeated here. As is shown in the introduction to the 
Chapter on "The Language Game" (see Appendix) the errors 
children make in their speech, like their errors in spelling, are 
really few. A dozen verbs, for example, are responsible for 
one-sixth of all the errors made in their speech. There is only 
one way to overcome these errors and that is to expose children 
for some period every day to the sound of right form. They 
must say it and hear it, over and over again. Correct speech in 
young children is a matter of the ear. Don't waste time in 
trying to show why this form is right and the other wrong. 
Use the language game freely. These games should be short 
and lively. They should never run over five minutes. They 
should be so devised as to give every pupil a chance to use as 
many times as possible the correct form chosen for the day's 
practice. 



FOURTH GRADE 



65 



I done it. 

He come back. 

We drawed a bird's nest. 

I brung it to him. 

There was about seven boys there. 

He trun it to me. 

We have saw them. 



I seen it. 

Where was you? 

My book is tore. 

It ain't so. 

My pencil is broke. 

You hadn't ought to do it. 

That don't make me laugh. 

Look what I done to that paper. 



Them are easy. 

He can't run as fast as me. 



They are wrong theirselves. 
Me and Frank will go. 



Can I get a book off Mary? 
My sister learned me to sew. 
Where shall I bring them to? 
The baby got sick on us. 
Sing it like John does. 
Can I have a drink? 



John stayed at home. 

She sits in back of me. 

Leave me do it. 

Where are you at? 

She never does nothin'. 

He be's always whispering '_o me. 



Ketch the ball! 
Lemme have that. 
I c'n git it. 



They was an old man there. 
Are they any school? 



IV. Comments and Cautions. 

The child learns to talk correctly by talking under careful 
direction, just as he learns to read by reading, and to write by 
writing. There must, therefore, be daily systematic, persistent, 
and patient training in talking in every grade from ihe first 
to the eighth. 



If in the arithmetic class a child should say, "2x3 are 5", 
would his teacher say "6" and pass on ? Then why when a boy 
says, "We come home last night", should she say sotto voce, 
"We came home," and let the matter pass at that. The boy is 
so intent upon his thought that he repeats what his teacher says 
without mental reaction, and unless something be done later to 
rescue the correction from that indefinite region known as the 
sub-consciousness, the teacher may as well save her breath. If 
she does not wish to interrupt him while he is talking, she 
certainly must take time at the first free moment to go back to 



66 FOURTH GRADE 

his error and require a correction. If the mistake is one he 
habitually makes, some scheme must be devised to keep him 
conscious and watchful, for nothing short of eternal vigilance 
will eradicate the evil. 

The teacher must do everything she can to take away the 
self-consciousness of her pupils. She should be quick to find 
signs of power as well as evidence of weakness. 

Time should not be wasted in aimless, haphazard talk. 

Look out for the "rising inflection". 



WRITTEN, 

(One-fourth of the language time in the fourth grade is given 
to written ivork.) 

I. Aims* 

The various lines of work suggested for the third year 
should be carried forward. The paragraphs, upon topics mainly 
drawn from the children's experience, should grow slightly in 
length, and give evidence of a little growth in the sequence and 
connection of the sentences. The quantity of the writing must 
not be permitted to increase at the expense of correctness. It 
is better to have a paragraph of four or five good sentences,, 
than one of twice the number carelessly done. Remember that 
the written work forms but a very small part of the language 
work of this grade, and be sure that the oral work is never 
slighted to gain time for perfecting the written work. 

Here for the first time the letter is introduced, and is to 
hold a very important place in the written work of the. grade. 
A discussion of letter writing in school and a number of models 
of letters will be found under the proper section of the year's 
work. 

Children should all the time increase in their mastery of 
the mechanics of written work and in their capacity to criticise 
their own composition. 



FOURTH GRADE 



67 



II. Lines of Work. 

1. SENTENCES. 

Much care should be taken during the year to hammer 
home "the sentence idea", which is so fundamental in writing. 
Either it is a difficult thing for some children to get. or we 
have neglected to teach it, or we have taught it poorly, for a 
great many children in the upper grammar grades do not seem 
to know when one sentence ends and the next one begins. Or, 
if they know, they have not yet "got the habit" of beginning 
their sentences with a capital and ending them with a period. 

There are many ways of driving home the sentence idea : 

(a) Let the teacher give orally groups of words, some 
which make sentences, and others not. After each 
one, let pupils tell whether it is a sentence or not, 
giving the reason. 

(b) Children may be required to make sentences out of 
the non-sentence groups. 

(c) The same exercises may be written on the board. 

(d) Let the children give groups of words, and let other 
children tell whether the given group is a sentence or 
not, always giving reasons. 

(e) The children may be required to complete the non- 
sentence group. 

It is both unnecessary and unwise to confuse fourth grade 
children by introducing the grammar of the sentence. The idea 
of the completed thought is all-sufficient. 

2. PARAGRAPH COMPOSITIONS. 

The standard paragraphs printed in the Third Grade out- 
line suggest the kind of original composition work that should 
be continued this year. Keep the sentences simple and the para- 
graphs short. There are fifty paragraph topics printed in the outline 
for the fourth grade ; but teachers are at liberty to choose from 
the subjects of any grade for this purpose. The list of subjects 
is meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive. Teachers are wel- 
come to use their own subjects, so long as they are concrete, 
personal, and brief. 



68 FOURTH GRADE 

Fourth grade paragraphs should be free from the mis- 
spelling of the common words upon which special drill has been 
given from the first grade up. 

3. LETTERS. 

The letter is the only kind of composition that every child 
will have to write after he leaves school. For that reason the 
school should give much practice in letter writing. If the 
children who leave the grammar school cannot write a correct 
letter, our work in written composition is a joke. 

In the interests of teaching economy, one form of the 
friendly letter, one form of the business letter, and one form 
for addressing the envelope are printed in an Appendix to this 
course, which are to be used by all teachers in all the grades, 
regardless of their personal preferences or predilections. After 
the children leave school, they may modify this form as much 
as they like, but while they are in school they will be required 
to conform to the school standard. 

The form, or arrangement, of the letter is a matter wholly 
separate from the writing of the letter itself. It is a matter of 
pure technique and should be taken up as such. Thus, a letter 
should be placed on the board, or hektographed, and the 
attention of the pupils called to the mechanical placing of the 
several parts. After sufficient study, the letter should be copied 
by the pupils. The letters that the teacher puts before the 
children for study of the form, should be models of letter 
writing as well as of correctness of mechanical arrangement. 
The body of the letters so used should be short (not more than 
five or six sentences in the fourth grade), but they ought to 
read like real letters from real children. You will find some 
letters of this sort later on in this section. Nothing should be 
said about the body of these letters at this time, but the children 
will catch the spirit of them without comment from the teacher. 
Later on, these same letters, or others, should be dictated to 
test the children's knowledge of the form. All models presented 
children should conform strictly in arrangement and punctuation 
to the standard letter form adopted for this course of study. 



FOURTH GRADE 



69 



When the form has been well taught, the work of writing 
original letters should begin. It is the almost universal ex- 
perience of teachers that the letters which children write in 
school are painfully unnatural and uninteresting. That is 
because they have usually no real letter to answer, no real 
person to write to, and no reason or desire at that particular 
time to write any kind of a letter to anybody. It is a horrible 
example of the necessity of "having to say something" instead 
of the satisfaction of "having something to say". So far as 
it is possible, therefore, the letters written in school should be 
real letters to real people. Otherwise, the motive is wanting, 
and the letters, while they may be even uncomfortably correct 
in respect to form, are likely to be painfully artificial and dull. 
In order to get the effect of realism, teachers should therefore 
contrive some scheme of actual correspondence. The resource- 
ful teacher does not need to be told how. 

Only friendly letters are undertaken in the fourth grade. 
These should contain one paragraph only. They should have 
to do with interesting occurrences at home, in school, 0:1 
holidays, or special occasions ; with invitations to share good 
times ; with appreciation of pleasures shared ; with sympathy 
for sickness or mishaps. The following letters may be helpful 
to teachers as illustrations of the sort of letters fourth grade 
children ought to be able to write at the end of the school year. 
The full letter form is not carried out in these illustrations. 



Dear Mary, 

I am taking piano lessons. I practise one hour every day. 
I can play a waltz. Come over Saturday and hear it. 
Your cousin. 



Dear John, 

A week from to-day will he my birthday. I am to have a 
party at four o'clock. I wish you would come. 
Your friend, 

Fred. 



70 FOURTH GRADE 

Dear Fred, 

I cannot be at your birthday party because I am going away 
with Father. I shall not be home again for a week. You know 
how sorry I am to miss the fun. 

Your friend, 

John. 



Dear Uncle, 

You are so far away, I am afraid you didn't hear the good 
news. Both Mary and I are to be promoted to Grade V. Isn't 
that fine? Father and Mother are as happy as we are. 
Your loving nephew, 



Dear Mrs. Brown, 

I had a very happy birthday. It was very good of you to 
•send me that book of fairy tales. I have read three stories already. 
Affectionately yours, 



My dear Miss Brown, 

I have been very sick for the last month, and the doctor 
says I cannot go back to school for quite a while. I am very 
lonely sometimes. Will you please send me the names of some 
good books? I should like something like "Little Women". 
Your affectionate pupil, 



Dear Aunt, 

Our teacher has just taught us to write a letter. I shall 
write one to you every week. We have learned the first verse of 
"America". I know every word of it. Would you like to see 
bow well I can write it? 

Your loving niece, 



Dear Frank, 

John told us this morning that you are in bed with a heavy 
cold. I am very sorry. I hope the doctor is not making you 
take medicine. I hate to take medicine. We began a new story 
in class yesterday. The name is "The Blue Bird". Perhaps your 
mother will get it and read it to you. I know you will like it. 
Your friend, 



FOURTH GRADE y 1 

4. TESTING ACCURACY AND KNOWLEDGE OF FORM 
BY DICTATION, COPYING, AND THE SHORT 
REPRODUCTION. 

In the grades below the fourth, copying and dictation serve 
a useful purpose as aids in introducing new lines of work to 
children, and they are to some extent useful in a similar way 
in this grade. This is particularly true in teaching the letter 
form, which, so far as its arrangement upon paper goes, is a 
purely mechanical matter. 

Generally, however, copying and dictation are more valuable 
for testing than for teaching. They should be used with 
moderation, and they should be used right. Children at the end 
of the fourth grade should be able to write from dictation at 
the rate of about eleven words (averaging 3^2 letters a word) 
a minute. This is according to the standard devised by Mr. S. 
A. Courtis. Dictation that is too slow is as bad as dictation 
i.hat is too fast. 

Reproduction differs only slightly from dictation and is 
mainly useful for testing a pupil's mastery in the mechanics. 
There is some originality involved, but memory is the chief 
factor. Only very short stories or incidents, with interest and 
point to them, should be used. It is an exercise to be used 
sparingly. 

III. Topics for Original Paragraphs. 

These topics are given here only to suggest the kind 
of topic that children are more likely to succeed with in their 
paragraph writing. Teachers do not have to use these partic- 
ular ones. But they must be sure to select subjects that are 
concrete, personal, and brief. 

The Best Coast in Lawrence. 

My Ride on a Roller Coaster. 

My First Swimming Lesson. 

How I Taught a Trick to My Dog. 

How to Spin a Top. 

Rabbit Ways. 

Fun at Beach. 

A Tree Mishap. 



72 FOURTH GRADE 

What I Like About the School. 

Taking Home My Monthly Report Card. 
The Game I Like Best for Indoors Recess. 
How We Make a Sewing Apron. 
A Picture in My School Room. 
Why I Was Late for School. 
How I Help My Teacher. 

A Summer Morning at the Playground on the Common. 

A Walk Along the Banks of the Merrimack. 

A Trip to Den Rock. 

A Trip to the Polls on Election Day. 

A Trip to the Pumping Station. 

How Lawrence Looks from the Water Tower. 

The Merrimack Falls in Winter. 

The View from the Canoe Club. 

The Flower Beds on the Common. 

Cheated at the Circus. 

Keeping Track of Johnny at the Picnic. 

What I Liked Best at the Pet Shop. 



The Baby at Our House. 

The Kind of Dog I Like. 

The Best Time I Ever Had. 

The Story I Like Best. 

Spending a Nickel. 

My Fall on the Ice. 

How We Surprised Mother. 

When the Fire Alarm Rings. 

My Home in Italy. 

On the Steamer From Hamburg. 

What I Saw on My Way to School. 

What I Did on Saturday. 

What I Am Going to be. 

A Fireman I Know. 

A Fire I Saw. 

Lawrence's Prettiest Street. 

In the Forest With Hiawatha. 

What "Safety First" Means. 

How to Build a Fire. 

How I Would Direct a Stranger to the Public Library. 

What I Liked Best in the Circus Parade. 

IV, Technicalities. 

There are very few written technicalities required in this 
course of study. Those that are required should be thoroughly 
taught, and plenty of opportunity given to use them in writing. 



FOURTH GRADE 



73 



3- 

4- 

5- 



Capitals. Beginning names of holidays, of local geo- 
graphical names (Tower Hill). First word of every 
line of poetry. 

Punctuation marks used in the writing of dates, letter 
headings, etc. 

Abbreviations. Those used in letter writing. 
Contractions. Isn't, didn't, wasn't, I've, won't, can't, 
wouldn't and others occurring in common use. 
Letter form. Arrangement on paper ; indentation of 
first line. 



V. Words for Special Spelling Drill. 

( Review words are printed in italics.) 



all right 


February 


afraid 


forty 


almost 


friend 


already 


guess 


always 


having 


beginning 


heard 


busy 


laughed 


color 


lose 


clothes 


much 


coming 


people 


doctor 


quiet 


dropped 


quite 


early 


Saturday 


enough 




aloud 


honest 


also 


hoping 


among 


hour 


because 


instead 


becoming 


just 


believe 


learned 


bicycle 


losing 


built 


meant 


business 


minute 


carriage 


ninety 


caught 


often 


choose 


perhaps 


early 


pieces 


easily 


pleasant 


fourth 


quietly 



shining 

their 

there 

they 

too 

tried 

truly 

until 

using 

which 

whose 

women 

writing 



ready 

really 

receive 

rough 

spoonful 

stopped 

straight 

tired 

touched 

through 

used to 

weather 

wholly 

written 



74 FOURTH GRADE 

VI. Comments and Cautions. 

To teach one thing for which the pupil is ever after 
responsible, then another thing plus the first, then a third, plus 
the first and second, is the surest way of getting somewhere. 

It is very important that the pupil read his composition 
through before handing it in. By this means he will discover 
many common errors, such as omissions of words, misspelled 
words, incorrect punctuation, and the repetition of the same 
word. He should be taught to cultivate the power of imagining 
Tiow it will sound when read aloud. 

The fourth grade teacher should begin to transfer the 
burden of criticism from her own shoulders to those of her 
pupils. But the criticism of one another's work by the pupils 
must always be controlled and directed by the teacher. Children 
must be made to understand 

(i) That criticism deals with merits as well as faults. 

(2) That criticism of one another's work should always be 
given to help one another. 

(3) That the pupil must regard his fellow-critics as his 
friends, not his enemies. 

In all oral and written composition, the blackboard is most 
useful. By means of it the oral expression is vizualized, making 
pleasing features more emphatic, while faulty ones are recorded, 
to be changed again and again until satisfactory. 

The co-operative work of teacher and pupil is made more 
impressive if the blackboard is brought into use in working out 
improvement in the sequence of thought, the sentence structure, 
and the choice of words. The teacher may copy upon it 
compositions which are to be criticised by the class ; or she 
may use it for presenting a model composition for the pupils to 
follow in their own oral or written constructions. 

One of the best ways to interest and to improve a class, 
particularly the poorly equipped or the indifferent members, is 
"to have pupils write their own compositions on the board, in- 



FOURTH GRADE -- 

stead of on paper. This method can be used with great profit 
in a grade as low as the third, and is increasingly valuable in 
higher grades. Here the writer is certain of an audience, and 
equally certain of an immediate estimate of his effort. He 
desires the appreciation of this audience, and wishes to avoid 
any unfavorable criticism from it. Therefore, it is natural for 
him to look over his work, correcting his own blunders before 
reading it aloud to the class for their comments. Such exer- 
cises are certain to develop the appreciation of the difference 
between orderly presentation of events and aimless wandering, 
to deepen the feeling for correct structure, and the knowledge 
of the right use of the capitals and the elementary punctuation 
marks. 

VII. Written Standards. 

At the end of the year, a fourth grade pupil of average 
ability ought to be able without oral preparation or other 
assistance from the teacher, to write a paragraph as good as 
the one here printed. Some pupils will be found able to 
write a much better one. A few will not be able to write as 
well as the example calls for. But at least seventy-five per- 
cent, of the class ought to be able to reach the standard of 
ability represented by it. 

My Flower Bed. 
I made my first flower garden last June. One day some 
boys ran across the bed, and stepped on one of my plants. The 
next day a dog scratched up some more. So I put a fence around 
what was left. After that the flowers had a chance to grow. 



76 FIFTH GRADE 

FIFTH GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(Two-thirds of the language time in the fifth grade is given 

to oral work.) 

I. Aims. 

By the time children have reached the fifth grade the 
following things should have become "bred in the bone" : 
(i) That it is a desirable thing to be able to speak good 
English. 

(2) That one should speak slowly and distinctly and with 
sufficient "carry" to the voice to make oneself heard 
in all parts of the class room. 

(3) That while talking one should stand erect and away 
from the desk. 

(4) That the short sentence is better suited to the majority 
of young speakers than the long sentence. 

(5) That a pupil in his talking, just as in his writing, 
should learn to pick out some one particular point in a 
given subject, and stick to it. 

During the fifth year keep the following, points constantly 
before the pupil. They will help a great deal. 
Stand up straight. 
Speak distinctly. 
Watch your English. 
Use short sentences. 
Stick to the point. 
Make it interesting. 

Arouse the conscience of your pupils toward clean-cut 
enunciation by giving frequent drills like those suggested in the 
Appendix. It does not make much difference what drills are 
used, or what words are practiced upon. The value of such 
drills lies in the suggestion which work of this sort sets going 



FIFTH GRADE j- 

in the pupil's mind. Poor enunciation is, for the most part, a 
matter of ignorance. Children don't know any better. They 
speak as they hear others around them speak. When it isn't 
due to ignorance, it is due to laziness. Some children and many 
grown people who know better are too lazy to enunciate their 
words clearly. It is too much bother. Most children, though, 
if taken early enough and shown the difference between distinct 
utterance and the slouchy manner of speech which so many of 
them, boys particularly, are prone to adopt, will respond to die 
teacher's efforts to set up for her class a high standard of 
enunciation. It . i not enough, however, for teachers to talk 
about good enunciation. The only way for children to learn to 
enunciate clearly is to have plenty of practice in clear enun- 
ciation. This is where the drill is useful — not because of the 
particular sounds the drill contains, but because it often 
awakens in children their first realization of what slipshod 
habits of enunciation they have grown into without knowing it. 
If children could learn no more than to sound their final con- 
sonants, their whole speech would be transformed. This much, 
at least, should be achieved in the fifth grade. 



II. Examples of Oral Composition. 

These examples suggest something of the style of oral 
composition to be aimed for in the fifth grade. They show 
some advance over the selections representing fourth grade oral 
composition, but are still simple and childlike. Because the 
power of children to talk is usually several years ahead of their 
ability to write, the use of the longer sentence is perfectly 
natural to many children in this grade and should not be 
discouraged except in the case of those who do not use it well. 
By the longer sentence is not meant a series of statements 
strung together by "and". The kind that is perfectly allowable 
is the kind that appears in the examples below. Oblige children 
who are careless in their sentence structure to talk in simple 
sentences until you can trust them to express themselves in 
larger units. 

There is no dearth of material for oral composition. Some 



78 FIFTH GRADE 

of this material was suggested in the third grade outline. The 
subjects for written composition make perfectly good subjects 
for oral composition. The range is as wide as the interests 
and the experiences of the children. They must be shown, 
however, how to handle their simple themes in such a way as 
to make them interesting to those who listen to them. This is 
not an easy thing to do, but it affords opportunity for the best 
kind of training. The chief thing to impress upon children is 
that they must not talk about a string of things in their oral 
compositions, but that they must select some single point, and, 
as it were, "elaborate" it. The examples which follow show 
commendable intent to do this very thing. They were taken, 
from the actual work of fifth grade children. 



My Pet Bird. 
I have a little bird named Dick. When I open the door of 
his cage he flies out about the room. He eats from my hands. 
If my mother does not put water in his dish he sits in it and 
keeps chirping till she pays attention to him. Then she puts the 
water in, and he takes his bath. After he is all dry, and has fixed 
his feathers, he begins to sing, and makes the morning bright. 



My Guinea Hens. 
We have two guinea hens. Their names are Jack and Jill. 
Jack has a white breast and the rest of him is black and white. 
Jill has white wings, and her body is gray and. white. These 
guinea hens' combs are different from hens' combs. They are 
very hard, and hurt your hand to touch them. Jill is very nervous, 
but Jack is very brave. If he sees his sister in trouble he will 
run to help her. We keep these guinea hens, because if anyone 
should come to steal the hens, the guinea hens would set up a loud 
racket. They also scare hawks. 



How I Help At Home. 
One day when I was tired of playing with my dolls, I asked 
my mother if I could help her. She said I might wash and iron 
my hair ribbons. I put the irons on the stove, and washed the 
ribbons. While I was ironing them, the iron fell from the holder 
onto the rug and burned it. I was afraid to pick it up, so my 
mother had to leave her work and do it for me. The first ribbon 
I ironed I scorched, because the iron was too hot. The next I 
scorched also. My mother then did the rest. She said I was 
more bother than help. 



FIFTH GRADE yg 

III. Common Errors of Speech. 

The errors listed for correction in the fifth grade are 
practically the same as those assigned to the grades below. The 
kinds of errors common to the speech of children arc few in 
number. But unfortunately they persist from infanc.) to old 
age. It is not possible to assign certain errors to certain grades, 
and let it go at that. The same old errors must be attacked all 
along the line. 

The grouping into: (i) verb errors, (2) pronoun errors. 
(3) colloquialisms, and (4) mispronunciations has no significance 
beyond serving to remind the teacher (see Chapter on "Common 
Errors of Speech" in the Appendix) that verb errors form the 
largest proportion of spoken errors, with the other three groups 
of errors following in order of frequency. That chapter in the 
Appendix should be studied carefully by the teacher who desires 
to make an effectual campaign against these errors. She should 
on no account be led into the mistake of discussing with her 
pupils this technical classification of errors, or the worse 
mistake of discussing in this grade the grammatical principles 
violated in these errors. The study of grammar does not begin 
until the seventh grade, and it is not to be brought into any 
earlier grade, no matter in what innocent disguise. Grammar 
never caused any child to speak correct English. There is only 
one way to teach right forms, and that is to have children say 
them often enough to make the right form sound right. 



Our piano is broke. He done it. 

He hadn't ought to go. It ain't no use. 

You was'nt on the corner. He seen more than you did. 

I come to Lawrence last week. He don't know his lesson. 

I've wrote my spelling long ago. Has the bell rang? 

She is laying down. 



Them words are too hard. I can write better than him. 

Me and you will go. 



So FIFTH GRADE 

I can copy it off the board. He was to his house. 

They learn you to cook at that school. She reads good. 

Take your place in back of him. They left him go. 

My mother took sick. Look where you're at. 

It won't hurt nothin'. The answer what you got is right. 

I brought it home to my mother. 



The candy is et up. Wait till I git me cap. 

They was a new book here. Watch me ketch it ! 

Her ran ahead a'me. May I borry a knife? 
Look at 'em ! 



IV. Comments and Cautions. 

It is quite remarkable to rind how few complete sentences, 
each containing subject, predicate, and suitable modifiers, are 
exchanged between the ordinary teacher and her pupils. 
Presumably in every school directions, questions, and explana- 
tions, are given; yet if teachers were to review their own 
language, they would probably be astonished to find how few 
sentences composed of well-chosen words they speak in a day. 
A sustained conversation between teacher and pupils is very 
unusual, frequently an unheard-of thing. Questions that are 
asked are generally elliptical in form, often they are expressed 
in single words, while the answers are very generally sent back 
by the children in single words or phrases, noL-in frequently by 
the monosyllables "yes" and "no". 

The shorthand report of eighteen recitations in a New York 
school showed that out of 750 answers to the teachers' questions 
420 were one zvord answers, and 100 more were phrase answers. 
What about the answers in your room? 

Insist that when the child talks he stand erect and free 
from his desk and that whenever practicable he face the persons 
to whom he talks, as in ordinary conversation. This physical 
control of his body will, when it becomes a habit, help him to 
control his thinking and his talking. 

Teach children the habit of dropping the voice at periods. 



FIFTH GRADF. g x 

Correct oral English may be realized in the language lesson 
only to be lost in the other periods of the daily program, unless 
the teacher carefully guards against any lapses by her pupils 
from the correct form until such time as right habits of ex- 
pression impel them to use the correct forms without any 
conscious effort on their part. Pupils should learn that during 
the entire school day their statements should be grammatical 
and complete. The teacher should seldom supply part of the 
pupil's answer or statement. 

The daily training in speaking before the class will in time 
enable the child to express his thoughts in the presence of 
others without nervous fear or a feeling of embarrassment. 
The results at first will often seem crude and unsatisfactory 
to the mature mind of the teacher ; but if finally the child 
acquires a composed, pleasing, and forcible manner of speaking, 
the end is well worth the effort. If the issue is only self- 
control and self -poise the time spent in the acquirement of these 
is time well expended. 

At the close of every recitation, or at least once a day, 
serious mistakes in English should be definitely and forcibly 
corrected. If this is done in a mechanical way, in the same 
manner day after day, little will be accomplished. On the 
other hand, if the work is carried on with spirit and intelligence, 
much may be done for the pupil's English. 

WRITTEN. 

(One-third of the language time in the fifth grade is given 
to tvritten work.) 

I. Aims. 

The aim of the fifth grade written work is to extend and 
strengthen the lines of work laid down in the previous grade 

Sentence work should still be restricted to the simple form 
of the sentence, except in the case of individuals who naturally 
write the longer sentence well. Those who do not should be 



82 FIFTH GRADE 

pinned down to the short sentence until they show themselves 
able to use the larger freedom judiciously. Below the seventh 
grade the child who has not natural language gifts loses himself 
in a complex or a compound sentence. All we need to get in 
the grammar school is clear and complete sentences, properly 
capitalized and punctuated. We cannot expect to get ease and 
grace. Those who go to the high school will get there all the 
style they want. Those who do not go to the high school will 
not need much English style to meet their writing needs in 
life. If any of them should later discover the need of style they 
will get it for themselves. 

The original paragraph work should show some increase in 
length, and the beginnings of skill in the art of elaborating, so 
to speak, the simple themes upon which the pupils write. The 
first thing to learn in this art is to focus the thought upon some 
single phase of the theme selected and make the whole para- 
graph turn upon that. This is not an easy art to acquire, and 
it cannot be acquired in a single year. The fifth grade teacher 
must, however, make a beginning at it. The lack of training 
in this respect is very noticeable in children's written themes. 
They write a dozen different things in a single paragraph, and 
consequently write nothing interesting about any one of the 
dozen things. The subject of "How I Help at Home" becomes 
a catalogue of duties from building the fire in the morning to 
washing the dishes after supper. Now, starting the fire in the 
morning is a theme full of possibilities for a composition para- 
graph, and washing the supper dishes is a theme not without 
opportunities for interesting (and possibly humorous) comment. 
Yet the great majority of children's compositions are of the 
catalogue type rather than of the selective type. Fifth 
grade children are capable of grasping this "single phase" 
thought, and of working it out little by little in their themes, 
if they have the right kind of help and suggestion from the 
teacher. Nothing is more helpful in this direction than the 
presentation by the teacher of many model paragraphs illustrat- 
ing how the elaboration of a single idea is carried out by a 
master hand. Much can be done toward this end in the oral 
composition work. Indeed, it is here that the foundation of 



FIFTH GRADE 



83 



written work is laid. If an oral composition is allowed to 
ramble over a variety of things, touching none of them inter- 
estingly, the written paragraphs will be no better in this respect. 
The same process holds good for both oral and written themes : 
Choose a subject that is concrete, personal, and brief. Then 
narrow it by selecting some single phase of the subject which 
gives most promise to yield the maximum of interest or enter- 
tainment or instruction. Then have the pupil work this up for 
all he is worth. 

The letter should form an important part of the written 
work. The standard form printed in an Appendix should be 
the unvarying standard in all grades. Follow the pattern of 
the model letters given for the fourth grade. These may be 
lengthened slightly, but should not be more than one paragraph 
in length. They should be of an informal, intimate type, 
simple, sincere, and jolly — such as real children would write to 
one another or to grown people of whom they are fond. 
Insist, however, that the form of the letter be strictly like the 
standard. 

Dictation, copying, and reproduction exercises should be 
occasionally used. But these, it must be remembered, are of 
chief value as testing exercises, not as teaching exercises. 
They should never be given unless there's a reason. Fifth 
grade children should write dictation at the rate of about 16 
ordinary words a minute. Copying is a good test of attention 
and accuracy, but care must be taken that right habits of copying 
are taught. If wrong habits are taught, it is a harm rather 
than a help. Copying should always be timed. It is impossible 
otherwise to measure the power of the different pupils. Once 
this power is known by actual testing, only those who are found 
to be slow and inaccurate should be given further practice. 
The others would be better occupied in other kinds of language 
work. Do not give much reproduction work. Its value is 
about on a par with dictation. It contains a slight element of 
originality, but its chief value is in testing mechanics of writing. 
It should be sparingly used. 

In the mastery of the mechanics and in the power to 
criticize their own work fifth graders should show steady growth. 



84 FIFTH GRADE 

II. Lines of Work. 

i. Sentences. 

2. Original paragraphs. 

3. Letters. 

4. Testing Accuracy and Knowledge of Form by Dictation, 
Copying, and the Short Reproduction. 



III. Topics for Original Paragraphs. 

The First Coast of the Winter. 

How We Made a Snow Lady. 

Playing School with My Dolls. 

Our Neighborhood Circus. 

An Afternoon at Canobie Lake. 

An Automobile Ride to Lowell. 

Coasting on Cold Spring Hill. 

A Hot Afternoon at the Wading Pool. 

Swimming Excitement. 



Our School Lawn. 

The School Yard at Recess. 

Our Christmas Entertainment. 

The Boy (Girl) in Front of Me. 

Listening for the "No Session" Bell. 

Filing Out at 11 :iS. 

How to Use the School Telephone. 

How to Keep a Neat Desk. 

My First Day in School After a Month's Absence. 



A Horse Race at Rockingham Fair. 

The Common in Winter (Summer). 

The Shattuck Flagstaff. 

The Water Tower. 

Along Essex Street on a Wet Day. 

My Grandfather's Barn. 

Our Garden After the First Frost. 

Helping in My Father's Shop. 

The Best Exhibit in Our Church Fair. 

The Spicket (Merrimack, Shawsheen) River. 

Packing the Lunch Basket for a Day at Canobie. 

A Visit to the Engine House at 7 :45 p. m. 



FIFTH GRADE 



85 



My Lucky Day. 

The Gypsies at Cold Spring. 

Fun at the Street Fountain. 

The Boy Choir. 

What I Saw When Carrying Dinners. 

A Frightened Animal at the Circus Parade. 

Picking Shells at Salisbury. 

Burning the Leaves. 

A Ride With the Grocer. 

Cleaning My Yard. 

The Street I Live on. 

A Picture in Our House. 

Why I'd Like to be a Letter Carrier. 

Why I Favor a Central Bridge. 

How I Help to Keep the City Clean. 

How I Care for Our Horse. 

How I Help at Home on Saturday. 

What I am Going to do for Christmas. 

How to Entertain a Number of Small Children on a Rainy Afternoon. 

How to Make a Whirligig. 

A Man I Would Like to Have for an Uncle. 

IV. Technicalities. 

The technicalities in this course are purposely kept few 
and simple. Teachers are not to teach anything that is not 
here indicated. Many of the "old favorites", like the "comma 
in a series" and the comma after the name of a person 
addressed, have been intentionally omitted. You will notice, 
also, that quotation marks have not yet appeared. 

If children use direct quotation in their written work, and 
leave out the marks, or use them wrong, don't worry about it. 
Let it pass unnoticed. There are many more important things 
to worry about. Quotation marks will be taught later on in the 
course, but only a very little time will be spent upon them. 
The use of quotation marks in the kind of writing that our 
boys and girls will be called upon to do after they leave school 
is very rare. It is an unimportant item upon which the school 
has been wasting much precious time. Teach thoroughly the 
few things you are told to teach, and leave the rest to some- 
body else. 

1. Capitals. Titles of compositions; addressing envelopes. 

2. Punctuation marks required in letter forms, including 
the address on the envelope. 

3. Apostrophe in possessive singular. 



86 



FIFTH GRADE 



V, Words for Special Spelling: Drill. 

(Review words are printed in italics.) 



'all right 


easily 


their 


■all ready 


enough 


there 


beginning 


friend 


tired 


believe 


heard 


too 


busy 


know 


truly 


business 


laughed 


until 


■carriage 


minute 


weather 


■caught 


people 


women 


'Color 


quiet 


written 


'Coming 


receive 




dropped 


studied 




answered 


except 


trouble 


cities 


handkerchief 


umbrella 


cousin 


neighbor 


useful 


cotton 


oblige 


village 


different 


pleasant 


whom 


drawer 


replied 


woolen 


either 


straight 





VI. Comments and Cautions. 

Pupils should continue the habit of criticizing and correcting 
their own written work before handing it in. What they can 
do for themselves the teacher should not do for them. 

Select two or three special points that you wish to impress, 
and examine the papers rapidly, with those points alone in view. 
Concentrate your efforts on those points for a time, then select 
other points and transfer the emphasis of your attention to 
them. The papers can be examined more easily and rapidly 
and, therefore, the exercises may be given more frequently 
when but few points are in mind. 

It is a good plan to have on the board or on the child's 
desk a list of points on which he needs to exercise care, such 
as spelling, capitals, periods, commas, grammar, etc. Let him 
look at this list before he begins, and correct his work according 
to it when he is through. The list can be varied to suit the 
special needs of each grade, or a list can be made for each 



FIFTH GRADE 



87 



child that will suggest his personal difficulties. Insist on each 
pupil doing his best in every exercise, and refuse to accept 
careless work. Hand such work back, without correction, and 
require the pupil to do it again. 

VII. Written Standards. 

The following paragraph was selected to represent the 
composition ability that it seems reasonable to expect from the 
child of average power at the end of his fifth year. It is not 
an easy thing to select from children's compositions of each 
grade a single paragraph that shall indicate the desired amount 
of growth from year to year. While the standard paragraphs 
used in this course of study have not been graded according to 
any scientific scale, each has been chosen after careful 
deliberation. Considering the fact that the schools have hitherto 
had no standards of any kind in oral or written composition, 
it would hardly be sensible to be over-finical in this first 
attempt to establish some. It is believed that they are adequate 
for the purpose of indicating to teachers in a concrete way the 
sort of original composition the general run of fifth grade 
children should be capable of turning off at the end of the y^ar. 
There will be found in every class, of course, a wide variation 
of this ability. For some the standard will be too low. A few 
may not be quite able to reach it. But so long as seventy-five 
percent, of the pupils can write an original paragraph as good 
as the example here presented, the teacher will have done her 
share of the work in written language. 

Flying a Kite. 
I have one of those kites that you get at Morehouse's. Last 
evening my brother and I went out on the Extension to fly it. 
There was a splendid breeze blowing. The kite flew as high as 
the telephone pole. It would have gone higher if the string had 
been longer. I am going to buy another ball of twine, and try 
it again this afternoon. So if you see a kite away up in the sky 
vou will know it is mine. 



88 SIXTH GRADE 

SIXTH GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(Two-thirds of the language time of the sixth grade is given 

to oral zvork.) 

I. Aims. 

The aim of the sixth year should be to accustom children, 
by much practice, to talk freely upon their feet and to be 
careful of their English and clear in their utterance. This 
carefulness in their speech should characterize all their recita- 
tions. The habit of good oral expression can never be 
established through the medium of the language period alone. 
Effort must be constant through the whole day's work. 

It is a good idea to have occasionally some short recitations 
or declamations of a simple character. 

Things for the pupil to remember : 

Know what you want to say. 
Say it in your own words. 
Say it to some one. 
Say it as well as you know how. 

Things for the teacher to remember : 
Make everybody talk. 
Don't criticise too much. 
Make corrections stick. 
Make the class profit as well as the pupil talking. 

Work constantly for the improvement of the enunciation 
of your pupils and the development of a speaking voice that 
without forcing or the use of an unnatural register can be heard 
easily all over the room. Have frequent drills in articulation 
like those suggested in the Appendix to this Course of Study. 
Strive to get clear enunciation in all recitations. It is of little 



SIXTH GRADE 



89 



use to work for ten or fifteen minutes a week on enunciation 
drills, and accept mumbling and half audible talk from pupils, 
during the rest of the time. The teacher who goes in for 
clean-cut enunciation will get it. We fail to get a good many 
things from our pupils because we are not earnest enough in 
our effort to get them. It is not to be expected, of course, 
that children to whom English is an acquired language will 
speak as perfectly, so far as enunciation goes, as native born 
children. That difficulty is always to be taken into consideration 
in judging the results of a teacher's work in oral language. 
No sixth grade class in Lawrence, however, is made up ex- 
clusively of children of non-English-speaking parents ; so tnat 
there are always children enough in every room whose speech 
may be taken, in all fairness, as samples of the persistence and 
success of the teacher's efforts to secure distinct enunciation. 



II. Examples of Oral Composition. 

The following paragraphs represent a reasonable standard 
for sixth grade oral compositions. Please note carefully wiiat 
was said in connection with oral composition in the fourth and 
fifth grades. The sixth grade work in oral composition is but 
a continuation of the work there discussed in considerable 
detail. Be especially alert to the need of training children to 
select a single phase of a subject and make the most of it 
they can in a single paragraph, instead of spreading themselves 
out thin over all the things that may occur to them to say upon 
the subject. For instance, take these two themes: 



How I Help My Mother. 
Every day when I get up in the morning I eat my breakfast, 
I wash the dishes, do the beds, and sweep the floor. Then I get 
ready to go to school. In the afternoon I just wash the dishes, 
and my sister sweeps the floor. When I come home from school, 
I do all the errands. Later I go out to play. When it is five 
o'clock I go home and stay home. At six o'clock we have supper. 
When we are all over with supper, I gather the dishes from the 
table. When I am done, I start to wash the dishes. When I have 
finished I say my prayers and go to bed. 



90 SIXTH GRADE 

How I Help My Mother. 
My share of the housework is washing the dishes. There 
are six of us at home. So you see we have a great many dishes 
to wash. I have never tried to reckon it, but I am sure I wash a 
million in a year. My sister wipes them, and we both wish we 
lived in the times when people ate out of the same dish with' their 
fingers. We play this game to keep up our courage. We try to do 
them quicker every week. Last week we gained four minutes. 
We didn't break any dishes either. 

These were taken from actual compositions of school 
children. The first is a schedule of a day of housework, upon 
no detail of which the author dwelt long enough to arouse our 
interest or to put anything of herself into her experience. It 
is mechanically correct, and that is all. The author of the other 
paragraph chose a single item of the day's work and worked 
into it considerable interesting detail and genuine childlike 
comment. It is this treatment of the paragraph that the sixth 
grade should strive for. It is not to be expected that every 
pupil in a class will be able to produce a paragraph that will be 
as interestingly worked out as the second example above. But 
all should work for it and a fair proportion of the class should 
really get it. 

Polly's x\ntics. 
On rainy afternoons I play with my poll parrot. His greatest 
delight is to play with a spoon. He slips it back and forth through 
a ring on his cage. Sometimes it drops on the floor. Then it is 
fun to see him run to get it as fast as his stubby little legs will 
carry him. If a piece of cracker is put into his cage, lickety-cut 
he goes in after it. A poll parrot is a very comical creature. 

Fun at the Camp. 
Last vacation my father said I could invite four boys up to 
our camp at Corbett's Pond. We lived in a tent, and slept out, and 
got our own meals. We went fishing and hunting, but had the 
most fun in swimming. While we were in the water, we played 
hall and had races. In the races I always came out fifth. 

The Christmas Tree on the Common. 
At Christmas time there was a large tree on the Common. 
It was illuminated with electric lights. On the top, there was a 
revolving light which lit up almost the whole Common. The tree 
was covered with all kinds of ornaments for Christmas. Near by 
was a large sign, on which were the words "Peace on earth, good 
will to men". 



SIXTH GRADE gj 



III. Errors of Speech. 



The use of correct English is a habit. This thought has 
been emphasized over and over again in this course of study. 
The speech of children and of grown people is full of errors 
because they have not formed the habit of talking correctly. 
There is a big difference between knowing hoid to do a thing 
and doing it. It is not mere knowledge, but habit that we want. 
Pupils may know the right form and out of two forms presented 
to them by the teacher, one right and one wrong, invariably 
name the right form. Yet in the very next recitation they will 
use the very form which they condemned a moment before. 
Every teacher has probably heard the old story of Johnny and 
the past participle of the verb "to go"; how the teacher 
punished him for repeated offences by requiring him to scay 
after school and write "I have gone" fifty times; how upon 
the completion of the task (in the absence of his teacher from 
the room) he wrote at the bottom of his paper: "Dear A I i s > 

, I have wrote "I have gone" 50 times and I have 

went home." Habits of years cannot be rooted up in a minute. 
To get a habit thoroughly rooted in a child's life takes careful 
drill and constant repetition. The errors of speech cannot be 
corrected by writing the correct form. It must be said and 
heard over and over again, until the ear becomes accustomed 
to it and accepts it in place of the wrong form which it had 
before accepted as the right one. 

The school has to fight perpetually the language habits of 
the street, and children are in school less than half of every 
year. But it is not fair to measure the power of the school 
to overcome bad language environment out of school by 
comparing the length of time spent in school with that spent 
upon the street. By reason of its opportunity to rivet attention 
and create vivid impressions, an hour in school, if used to the 
fullest extent, far outweighs an hour upon the street. Every- 
body knows the miracles the school performs upon the little 
foreign children who enter it. But miracles are not wrought 
incidentally. Children cannot be taught to forsake bad habits 
by occasionally correcting their use of ain'ts and wa'n'ts. The 



92 



SIXTH GRADE 



effort must be organized, regular, and persistent. The errors, 
after all, are not many, and it is wonderful how the avoidance 
of a few of them affects our opinion of a person's education. 
The knowledge of a dozen forms of correct expression will 
give a person an appearance of being well educated, even though 
his schooling was very limited. The man who never says ain't 
almost qualifies as an educated man. 

Excellent material for drill for upper grades may be found 
in "Applied English Grammar", a text-book written a dozen 
years ago by Edwin H. Lewis, published by the Macmillan 
Company, and in a new book, "Language Games for All 
Grades", by Miss Alhambra Q. Deming of Winona, Minn., 
published by the Beckley-Cardy Company of Chicago. 



The ice had broke. 

The picture is tore. 

I seen him when he done it. 

I come to school early this morning. 

There was two new boys in the yard. 



He done his work first. 
You wasn't there. 
'Taint no good. 
She don't want them. 



Hand me them books. 



Who is going, you or me? 
It was me that lent the book. 



John took my knife off me. 

She's just after coming. 

My teacher learned me to write. 

It sort of makes you afraid. 

Leave me see. 

I have a book what has no cover. 

Mary talked like he did. 

Can I speak to her? 



Here, look't. 

He was to church. 

It went fine. 

Where are you at? 

We won't have no school to-day. 

I hat ter go home. 

The water pipe is all froze up. 



What are you doin'? 

Are they any school? 

I'm a thinkin' a goin' to-night. 

Gimme a book. 



Kin' you ketch the ball? 

Give it to 'em ! 

My mudder gave me the book. 



IV. Comments and Cautions. 

Remember that those who talk well will write well. Writers 
may not be speakers, but really good speakers can always write. 



SIXTH GRADE 



93 



The teacher must insist that the pupil give her only his 
hest English in all recitations, and that clear expression become 
more and more general as the year advances. 

In a recent survey of classroom teaching in the city of 
New York, short-hand reports of eighteen recitations showed 
that all the pupils together used about 5000 words, while their 
teachers used about 19000 words. Who. does the most talking 
in your room? 

Helpful criticisms by the pupils should be encouraged, but 
aimless, trite remarks such as "I liked what you said" and 
"I think you had a good choice of words" should be discouraged. 
Impress upon the pupils that only such criticism should be 
offered as will call attention to an excellence, or enable the one 
who is speaking to do better in his next effort. Avoid also 
the danger of allowing the criticism to stop with minor correc- 
tions and evident slips. 

Pupils, .also, should be taught by degrees to make definite, 
systematic, and kindly suggestions on both the matter presented 
by the pupil talking and his manner of presenting it, and should 
be led to discover what the secret is of the effectiveness of the 
pupils who talk well. 

WRITTEN. 

(One-third of the langauge time of the sixth grade is given 
to written work.) 

I. Aims. 

At the end of the sixth year children should be able : 

(1) To express in a short paragraph, clearly and with 
some sense of order, such ideas as are entirely familiar 
to them. 

(2) To use sentences grammatically complete, correctly 
begun and ended. 



94 SIXTH GRADE 

(3) To write and mail a simple letter to a friend, or a 
brief business letter, using the standard forms adopted 
in this course of study. 

(4) To spell correctly the words which they commonly write, 
and upon which they have been specially drilled. 

(5) To know how to use the few technicalities taught. 

(6) To criticize intelligently their own work, and correct 
their own errors. 

The facility and the accuracy called for by the above 
standards of ability are not, of course, expected to be the same 
in degree as the facility and accuracy expected at the end of 
the eighth grade. They are the same in kind, but in a more 
limited field. It is difficult to define accurately just what that 
field is, and it is possible to over-rate the ability of twelve- 
year-old children. The things that are called for here they 
must be able to do by themselves, without any help or 
cautioning from the teacher. Often the quality of work done 
by children when wholly unassisted is disappointing to teachers, 
because the constant "boosting" they give children in the every 
day recitation misleads teachers as to the real power that pupils 
themselves possess and which they can draw upon unaided. 
Sixth grade children should, however, at the end of the year 
show considerable mastery of simple language facts and know 
how to use them accurately. It is assumed that in the process 
by which this mastery has been gained there will have been 
simultaneously developed some useful language habits and. 
tendencies. Some of these are : 

(1) The tendency to select a subject for original composi- 
tion that can be interestingly developed in a single 
paragraph. 

(2) The tendency to think over the subject and to do some 
little mental arrangement of ideas. 

(3) The tendency to avoid too much repetition of the 
same words and the same sentence form. 

(4) The habit of neatness in writing the composition. 

(5) The habit of looking over all written work to correct 
mistakes. 



SIXTH GRADE q- 

The sentences should still be kept simple. At the same 
time pupils who show themselves capable of using complex 
and compound sentences in their written paragraphs without 
getting snarled up in them should be allowed considerable liberty 
in this respect. The teacher must remember, however, that the 
longer a child allows a sentence to run, the greater the danger 
that it will run away with him. Just as soon, then, as a pupil 
shows by his careless handling of the long sentence that he 
is enjoying more liberty than is good for him, he should be 
brought back to the starting line. 

It would be a waste of time to attempt to get all of the 
pupils in this grade, or even a majority of them, to use the longer 
sentence. It is not worth while to work for it in this grade. 
Even if it could be successfully done, it would be done at too 
great an expense. There are other things more important at 
this stage. If your class leaves the sixth grade able to write 
good short sentences, invariably begun with a capital letter and 
ended with a period or whatever other closing mark is required, 
you may thank your stars. Have no regrets that the course 
did not permit you to teach a maturer style. You have given 
them the thing most needful. If they remain in school, they 
will get later on what you perhaps would like to give them now. 
If they leave school early to go to work, you have given them 
the best possible thing — the habit of writing short, simple, clear, 
and correct sentences. 

The one step in advance which the sixth grade teacher 
may take, with respect to sentence structure, is to train her 
pupils to use a greater variety of ways of beginning their 
sentences. They should be taught to avoid repetition of the 
same word or phrase. They may be also taught to practice 
some of the simpler principles of inversion, so as to make the 
important things in the sentence come first, or last. The 
conventional order of subject, verb, and object in the sentence 
tends toward monotony. If this stereotyped order can be varied 
occasionally, the monotony of a succession of short sentences 
will be relieved and the whole effect of the sentence structure 
improved. It is not expected that all the pupils will develop 
much skill in this kind of work if it is attempted ; but it is 



96 SIXTH GRADE 

better to spend effort upon improving the simple sentence than 
to try to get all the children to use complex and compound 
sentences, which is more than can be expected of sixth grade 
children. 

In the sixth grade the friendly letter is to continue an 
important feature of the written work, and the business letter 
is to be introduced. The standard form for the business letter 
is printed in an Appendix. This, like the form of the friendly 
letter, is the one adopted by the Bureau of Measurement and 
Efficiency of the Boston public schools. The body of the 
business letter should be confined to a few sentences. The chief 
thing to teach is the form. The friendly letter ought to show 
some growth in interest and ease, in proportion as the children 
gain in the power to elaborate a single theme interestingly in 
their own original paragraph work. 

IL Lines of work. 

( i ) Sentences. 

(2) Paragraphs. 

(3) Friendly Letters. 

(4) Business Letters. 

(5) Teaching letter forms, mechanics, and accuracy by 
occasional exercises in dictation, copying, and short 
reproduction. 

(Sixth grade children should write from dictation at 
the rate of about 19 words a minute, according to the 
Courtis scale.) 

III. Topics for Original Paragraphs. 

Study the suggestions given for the fourth and fifth 
grades, under both oral and written composition. 

My New Flexible. 

Coasting Down Providence Street. 

Fishing Through the Ice at Valpey's. 

A Potato Roast. 

The Merrimack at 4.30 When Skating is Good. 

The Fun a Bicycle Brings. 

A Hallowe'en Scare. 



SIXTH GRADE 

The School Team. 

Our New Victrola. 

Doing Palmer Writing. 

The Snow Rally at Recess. 

Our Slide on the Common. 

Why I Had to Stay after School. 

Why I Like the Reading Period. 

Why I Like Our Sewing Lesson. 

The Song I Like Best. 

How I Explained My Tardiness to the Principal. 

If I Were Teacher. 



My Visit to the Iron Foundry. 

A Visit to the General Hospital. 

How the Lawrence Filter Works. 

The Sanitary Milk Station. 

Essex Street on the Night Before Christmas. 

The Transfer Station at 5 :30 p. m. 

What the Ayer Mill Clock Sees. 

A Hot Sunday Afternoon on the Common. 

The Best Exhibit at Rockingham Fair. 

At the Tribune Office at 4 p. m. 



The Scarecrow. 

When Mother Goes Away. 

Getting up on a "Zero" Morning. 

"Clean up" Week in Lawrence. 

The Song of the Looms. 

It Happened on the Belt Line Car. 

The Rainbow in the Merrimack Falls. 

Our Program on the Afternoon Before April 19. 

If I Had My Own Way. 

The Busy English Sparrow. 

How to Procure a Public Library Card. 

How I Made My Garden. 

How We Earned Our Christmas Tree. 

How to Treat a Frightened Horse. 

How to Sew on a Button. 

An Anecdote About Washington. 

When My Ship Comes In. 

Our Silly Puppy. 

Why Cats Make Better Pets Than Dogs. 

Is Country or City Life More Enjoyable? 

Why Lawrence Was so Named. 

Being Housekeeper for a Day. 



97 



98 SIXTH GRADE 

IV. Technicalities. 

Quotation marks are here introduced for the first time. 
Do not try to teach the so-called "broken quotation''. Emphasize 
the idea that every ivord spoken by the person that is quoted, 
and not one zvord more nor less, must be enclosed in quotation 
marks. // every word spoken can be enclosed by one set of 
quotation marks, then only one set is required. But if every 
word spoken cannot be brought inside of one set of quotation 
marks, without also taking in words that were not spoken by 
the person quoted, then two sets must be used, or as many as 
are necessary. Drill on quotation marks must not be overdone. 
The school in the past has wasted many hours upon them, with 
no results. Tests have proved that with all the teaching of 
them, eighth grade children use them very imperfectly in their 
free writing. As a matter of fact, quotation marks do not 
enter enough into the kind of writing that the average boy and 
girl do after they leave school to make it pay to spend very 
much time in drill upon them. The same is true of the comma 
in a series and the comma after the name of a person addressed, 
two other points upon which we foolishly spent our time in 
former days. 

(i) Capitals. Use in abbreviations listed below, and in 
first word of quotation. 

(2) Punctuation marks necessary in letter forms. 

(3) Abbreviations. Gov., Hon., Pres., Rev., and others 
in general use. 

(4) Quotation marks in simple quotations. 

(5) Review all technicalities listed under earlier grades. 

V. Words for Special Spelling Drill. 

The pupils should be tested from month to month on all 
the words in these special lists, from the second grade up. 
From these tests, lists should be made of the words misspelled 
by any considerable number of the class, and vigorous drill given 
upon these words until subsequent tests prove they have been 
mastered. Nothing short of perfect scores should satisfy the 
teacher. It has been proved that not one eighth grade child in 



SIXTH GRADE 



99 



a thousand misspells more than one hundred words of his 
ordinary writing vocabulary. It is believed that if all the 
words contained in this course of study are thoroughly mastered, 
the spelling problem, so far as the pupil's normal writing 
vocabulary is concerned, will be satisfactorily solved. 

(Review words are printed in italics.) 



already 


friend 


studying 


all right 


having 


their 


beginning 


heard 


there 


believe 


minute 


too 


bicycle. 


oblige 


truly 


business 


pleasing 


using 


earning 


quite 


woolen 


different 


really 


writing 


enough 


receive 




except 


replied 




absence 


describe 


separate 


allowed 


hurried 


several 


attacked 


library 


speech 


certainly 


occurred 


surprised 


clothing 


seized 





VI. Written Standards. 

All the studies that have been so far undertaken with a view 
to establishing a scale for the measurement of composition 
have shown that there is a startling diversity in the judgment 
of teachers as to the excellence of compositions submitted by 
pupils. The belief that this wide variation of judgment as to 
the intrinsic merit of the same composition is due, in no small 
degree, to the lack of anything like definite standards by which 
the language work of pupils may be measured has led to the 
formulation of the written standards set up in this course 
of study. That there will be complete agreement as to 
the suitability of these selections as standards is not to be 
expected. But until further study and experimentation will 
have evolved a better set of standards it is hoped that they 
will help to interpret to teachers in concrete form the require- 
ments of written language. 



IOO SIXTH GRADE 

The composition that follows was written by a pupil of our 
school system. It is intended to represent the language power 
which it is believed the average sixth grade pupil who has been 
trained along the lines suggested in this course of study ought 
to possess. While it does not possess anything that savors of 
literary style it has the merit of being definite and brief, with 
an orderly arrangement of ideas, and with sentences gram- 
matically complete. As has been stated previously, teachers 
will find sixth grade pupils who seem to have inherited a 
natural language power, for whom this standard will be low. If, 
however, the majority of pupils who have completed the sixth year 
can write a composition as good as the "standard", there will 
be no cause for worry. 

Something Good to Eat. 
I belong to a cooking class that meets every Saturday after- 
noon. Last week we learned to make something new. We took 
a box of Uneedas and some marshmallows. On top of each 
cracker we placed a marshmallow, and put them in a pan in a hot 
oven. They stayed there long enough for the marshmallows to 
puff up and brown. They are very good to eat with ice cream. 
The next time you come to spend the afternoon with me, I will 
prove it to you. 



VII. Comments and Cautions. 

Strive to avoid making composition work disliked. In all 
correction try to stimulate the pupil to improve his written 
language because of the value to himself, and teach him to 
appreciate correction as an aid in securing that desired end. 
Do not dwell on correction, either in oral or written work, so 
much as to restrain the child's flow of thought. He should be 
stimulated to do careful work, but should be left to express his 
thought unchecked. 

There are two lines of correction and criticism to be 
observed continually : knozvn errors, those upon which there has 
been previous class drill ; unknown errors, those which the. 
pupil does not recognize as mistakes or weaknesses. Pupils 
should be held to self-correction of the former (those errors 



SIXTH GRADE I0I 

upon which they have been well drilled) ; but matters pertain- 
ing to the bettering of their sentences, their choice of words,, 
their arrangement of ideas are matters for the teacher to discuss 
in class. She cannot do this if all her time is spent in correcting 
mechanical errors. 

See that your children get the habit of going over their 
work carefully, before handing it in, and making any changes 
they think will improve it. Pupils should feel free at such 
times to draw a line through a word and substitute a better 
one, or make any other changes that they think are for the 
better. The wise teacher is not distressed by changes of this 
sort made upon the paper. By degrees, the pupils who make 
them will learn to anticipate errors, and choose in advance the 
better word or the better form of sentence. We are not looking 
for perfect papers ; we are looking to develop the power that 
will later on make them less imperfect. This does not mean that 
neatness is not to be encouraged and commended, or that 
sloppy work is not to be condemned. It means that we must 
be big enough not to fret over little things, so long as the 
children are clearly on their way to better writing. And every 
child is on his way to better writing who is getting the habit 
of scrutinizing his composition, and correcting and improving 
his work before the paper is carried up to the teacher. 



j(>2 SEVENTH GRADE 

i 

SEVENTH GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(One-half of the language time in the seventh grade is given 

to oral work.) 

I. Aims. 

A seventh grade pupil at the end of the year ought to be 
able, when called upon, to stand on both feet, away from the 
desk, and talk for two or three minutes upon a subject familiar 
to him in simple, clear, and grammatical English, with clear 
enunciation and a natural pitch of voice. 

The oral exercises should be planned and carried out as 
carefully as the written exercises. Discuss the things that help 
to make a speaker interesting, such as a correct standing 
position, a pleasant quality of voice, clear enunciation, and a 
rate of utterance not too fast to be hard to follow and slow 
enough to insure clean-cut articulation ; eyes upon the school- 
room audience, not upon the floor or the ceiling ; the manner 
of one interested in what he is saying and in the effect he 
desires to produce, instead of one performing a perfunctory or 
unwilling task which he wants to have done with as soon 
as possible. 

In this grade the oral composition may well call for more 
sustained effort. The pupil should begin to learn how to express 
opinions (original or gathered from his reading) of persons, 
measures, events, books, historical and literary characters. In 
this grade it is well to give out topics several days in advance, 
so that real preparation can be made with a view to oral 
presentation. 

Teachers cannot be too often reminded that oral work is 
a great deal more important than the written work, although 
in this grade an equal amount of the language time is devoted 
to each. Children who leave school from the seventh grade 
will probably have little occasion to write anything ; but they 



SEVENTH GRADE IO ? 

will talk every day of their lives, and their success in life will 
depend much more upon their ability to talk than upon their 
ability to write. Besides, children who are to be taught to 
write well must first be taught to talk well. There is scarcely 
a point in written composition that cannot be developed as 
effectively, and much more economically, in the oral exercise ; 
viz., arrangement of ideas, correctness and variety of sentence 
structure, choice and variety of words. Then, too, the moral 
value of the training is great. When a boy's slouching, nerve- 
less posture against his desk and his slovenly enunciation of 
disjointed half-sentences have been exchanged for a body held 
erect, a voice and an enunciation that carry thought clearly 
stated, you have a boy who has gained in character as well as 
in ability to talk correctly upon his feet. 

Continue to emphasize the importance of good enunciation, 
not only in the oral language period, but in all recitations. 
The reading period ought to contribute more to this end than 
it usually does. The fact that every individual in the school- 
room audience (including the teacher) holds a printed copy of 
what the pupil is reading aloud is not calculated to provide a 
very strong motive for clean cut utterance. The listeners know 
what the pupil is reading, even if neither his voice nor his 
articulation is good. There is a growing suspicion that the 
oral reading period in the grammar grades is very wasteful of 
time as a means of teaching children to read, because the 
reading ability that will function most practically in the lives 
of children after their school days are over is not the ability to 
read aloud, but the ability to gather thought swiftly and 
accurately from the printed page — that is, the power to read 
silently. But so long as oral reading holds its large place in 
the daily program, it ought to be made as effective a means as 
possible to improve children's speech by training them in the 
right use of the voice, and by securing the best possible 
enunciation of the words they read. It is certain that the work 
in oral language, so far as clear utterance is concerned, would 
be greatly helped out by a greater emphasis upon these matters 
in the readme: lesson. 



104 



SEVENTH GRADE 



II. Examples of Oral Composition. 

The oral paragraphs printed here are illustrative of the 
wider range which the topics should take in the seventh grade. 
No one of them relates to the pupil's own experience. They 
are, instead, taken from the interesting things that children of 
this age read in books, magazines, and newspapers. This does 
not mean that the pupil's personal experiences should not be 
drawn upon to furnish topics for his oral paragraphs. Subjects 
from interesting personal experiences should still be included, 
but not to the extent employed in the earlier grades. It was 
not thought necessary, however, to take up space here with 
examples of oral composition drawn from actual experience. 
They are sufficiently illustrated by the examples given under 
the oral work of the fifth and sixth grades. 

Seventh grade teachers should study carefully the sug- 
gestion printed under those two grades with reference to the 
importance of training children to select a single phase of a 
subject and to make the most of it they can in a single 
paragraph, instead of spreading themselves out thin over a 
topic so large that they cannot talk upon it interestingly within 
the limits of a paragraph. This point was discussed at length 
in the preface to the course under the heading, "Subjects Should 
Be Personal. Definite, and Brief". 



Delft. 
Delft is a quaint little town of Holland. It is noted for the 
making of china. The china is made from clay, which is after- 
ward put into an oven and baked. Then it is taken out and 
decorated with pictures of windmills, canals, and dikes. It is then 
baked again. The pictures are really burned into the dish. Delft 
china is famous all over the world. 



The Windmills. 
The windmills of Holland are very picturesque. They are 
colored red, green, blue, or yellow. It makes one dizzy to watch 
their great wings go around. They are used to grind corn, saw 
wood, and to grind stone into sand. Sad to say, the days of 
windmills are numbered. Steam is now taking their place in 
many parts of Holland. 



SEVENTH GRADE I0 c 

The Bazaars of Tunis. 

If one should visit the fairs at Tunis, it would make him 
think that he was reading the story of the "Arabian Nights". He' 
would hear Arabic tongues speaking near him and see queer 
Oriental costumes on every side, with little booths loaded and 
draped with wonderful things. It is very hard for anyone to make 
a bargain in the East, for the dealer always begins charging three 
times as much as the fair price. 



Old Ironsides. 

The United States warship Constitution had been victorious 
in many sea fights and had been fondly nicknamed Old Ironsides. 
But at last she was unseaworthy and was about to be broken up. 
A good many people did not like the idea of this. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes was one of these. He wrote a poem protesting against 
it and the poem stirred the hearts of the people so deeply that 
the government decided not to break her up. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes with his stirring poem saved the old ship. 



Dawes's Ride. 

All American people know Longfellow's poem of "Paul 
Revere's Ride". From it Paul Revere has gained much fame for 
his historic ride through Lexington to spread the alarm that the 
British were coming. But few people are aware that while he 
was doing this, another patriot, named William Dawes, was making 
a similar ride through Roxbury. He was doing this under the: 
direction of Joseph Warren, and his orders were about the same 
as the ones given to Revere. Dawes did his part well, but Revere 
got all the glory. 



Florence Nightingale. 

During the great Crimean war, in which England took part, 
many wounded soldiers were left to die on the battle field and 
many died from disease. Florence Nightingale, a rich English girb 
hearing these pitiful tales, determined to go and help these poor 
soldiers. She went to the front and took charge of the hospitals. 
Every night she went the rounds of the wards to see if all the 
soldiers were resting comfortably. All the soldiers loved her. 
Some of them called her "The Lady with the Lamp". The work 
of Florence Nightingale was the real beginning of the Red Cross 
work that we hear about so much today. 



ic6 



SEVENTH GRADE 



III. Common Errors of Speech. 

"If to do were as easy as to know what 'twere good to do" , 
teachers would simply have to teach children the rules they 
violate in their everyday speech, and the errors would straight- 
way disappear. Unfortunately, correct speech is not acquired 
by a knowledge of rules. The rules of grammar do not 
fashion speech. They do not establish habits of correct usage ; 
they only make that usage more intelligent. Therefore imitation, 
practice, and habit — not rules, formulas, and definitions — should 
be the watchwords of the teacher. It is constant use and 
practice under never failing watch and correction that make 
pupils talk well. 



Two windows was broke. 

Who done it? 

We was to study history this period. 

It don't matter. 

He come to school with me. 



They et the cakes. 
The dog seen a squirrel. 
I ain't doin' nothin'. 



Who you going for? 
Where's them two tickets? 



Me and my brother wrote it. 



We were to the show. 

That book learns you how to take 

care of animals. 
Shall I bring this book home? 
I wouldn't be left do it. 
Is every one in their place? 
"Those kind of flowers ain't pretty. 
I didn't go no place. 



My pen don't write good. 
He had kind of a hard time. 
Draw it like I said. 
I'm all better noV. 



He wouldn't of gone. 
Are they any pencils ? 
I'm doin' my work. 



She uster live on Elm St. 
Can't you see 'em? 
Doncher see? 



IV. Comments and Cautions. 

The teacher must be convinced that it is supremely 
worth while to equip a child with the power to express what he 
thinks in direct and clean-cut -sentences, however simple, and 
that clear expression reacts on clear thinking. 



SEVENTH GRADE l0 y 

Children talk the talk of the majority on the playground, 
on the streets, in their homes. The majority are careless of 
rules and ignorant of standards. With a fourth-grade vocab- 
ulary and fourth-grade habits of expression, a seventh- or 
eighth-grade child can make known most of his wants and most 
of his thoughts to his playmates and his family. The con- 
versation that he hears passes on to him the worn coins of 
provincialism and bad English. For a few hours a day, five days 
out of seven, he is shut up in a different world, where the 
teacher, perhaps, as one pupil said, "always requests us to use 
good English". But what of it? Too often the only use for 
any English at all is for a few words in answer to rapid-fire 
questions, and nobody but the teacher has a chance to express 
herself. It is no wonder that children consider their habits 
of speech of little importance even in school, when the most 
continuous expression required of them is the answering of 
questions. If a teacher wishes to train children in right habits 
of expression she must create opportunities for such expression ; 
she must learn to keep still and let the pupils talk. When the 
pupil does talk, the teacher should insist that he speak to the 
point and only to the point, answer the question and nothing 
but the question, and in the best words at his command. 

WRITTEN. 

(One-half of the language time of the seventh grade is given 
to written work.) 

I. Aims. 

In the sixth grade some attention was given to one or two 
of the more elementary principles of sentence structure, still 
keeping within the limits of the simple sentence. Variety in 
sentence beginnings was suggested, and the variety that results 
from changing occasionally the monotonous sequence of subject, 
verb, and object. In the seventh grade, if the teacher finds her 
class up to grade in the fundamentals of their written work, 
she should be encouraged to go a little farther into the study 
of sentence betterment. She should also devote a little attention 



108 SEVENTH GRADE 

to the study of choice of words. These matters have been 
postponed until the seventh year, because the pupil does not 
earlier perceive the value of such things. Up to this time, we 
have aimed at copious and natural expression. Now we have 
arrived at the place where the pupil himself, if he has been 
led to become a willing producer of compositions expressing 
his own experiences and views of life, feels the need of learning 
how to say things better. This is the time, therefore, when 
children are not only willing, but eager, to study how they may 
contrive to say more effectively what they want to say. It is 
not to be expected, nor desired, that children in the grammar 
grades be taught many of the refinements of style. The 
business of the grammar school is to teach them to write 
correctly and clearly, and no teacher is to neglect the latter in 
her efforts to secure the effects that come from increased skill 
in handling sentences, or in the choice of words. It is better to 
know nothing of style than to sacrifice clearness and correctness 
in the process of getting it. The work here suggested should 
not be begun as class exercises until the second half of the 
year. By that time the teacher will know whether the children 
are ready for it, and, in addition, the pupils will by that time 
have gained from their grammar work enough familiarity with 
the grammatical structure of the sentence to enable them to 
begin the work of expanding, and otherwise improving, their 
sentences more understandingly. These matters should deal 
only with the simplest and most useful points of style. 

The following ways of bettering the sentence are not 
thought to be beyond the capacity of seventh grade pupils : 
(i) Expanding the short simple sentence by amplifying the 

subject and predicate by (i) a word, (2) a phrase, 

(3) a clause. 

(2) Combining sets of short sentences that have unity of 
thought into a single sentence. 

(3) Contracting long sentences, by reducing a clause to a 
phrase, a phrase to a word. 

(4) Seeking variety in sentence beginnings, and through 
mixing long and short sentences in the paragraph. 
Emphasis sought through a change in form of sentence 



SEVENTH GRADE 



IOCj 



(using the interrogative and exclamatory sentences for 
the sake of breaking up the monotony) and through a 
change in the order of words in the sentence, as sug- 
gested for sixth grade work. 

The teacher should be on her guard not to overdo this 
conscious manipulation of sentences, so as to produce an 
artificial style. It is the common experience of teachers of 
composition that if this work of expanding sentences is gone 
into mechanically and in wholesale fashion, its results are likely 
to be disappointing. In the effort of the pupils to put into a 
single sentence what before they were accustomed to express 
in two or three sentences, there is likely to appear a new awkward- 
ness that is very disconcerting to the teacher. Only the teacher's 
good language sense will carry her successfully through these 
first ventures toward conscious style. 

The work of awakening in pupils a sense of word values 
is attended by no such danger, and becomes for children a most 
pleasurable study, if the teacher herself has a genuine feeling 
for words and is sensitive to their power of suggestion. It is 
not expected that grammar school children will become expert 
in the use of exact, appropriate, and expressive words. All that 
teachers should hope to do, or try to do, is to awaken in their 
pupils the beginnings of an appreciation of words, so that some 
of them, at least, will not be satisfied with the meagre stock of 
worn-out words with which many people are content to express 
themselves both in speech and writing. Dickens tells us of a 
young man in Doctor Blimber's school who was so badly taught 
that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. 
Most people stop learning words as soon as they have accu- 
mulated a vocabulary sufficient to communicate their commonest 
wants, and go through life on a fourth-grade vocabulary. The 
school, therefore, ought to do a little more than it has done to 
start the current of children's thought in the direction of a 
better choice of words in their speech and their writing. It i^ 
work that will not take much time. Occasional talks upon the 
value of expressive words, illustrated and reinforced by the 
reading- of selections from writers who are acknowledged 



1IO SEVENTH GRADE 

masters of the art of diction, will do much to arouse a desire 
in the pupils to use a livelier verb here or a more expressive 
adjective there in their written paragraphs. Nothing is more 
valuable than the use of the "model", unless it be the teacher's 
own sensitiveness to words aptly used and phrases happily 
turned. If the teacher who reads to her class a paragraph 
illustrating the use of "words fitly chosen" does not make 
manifest her own keen appreciation and delight, the art of the 
"model" will not be likely to impress her pupils. 

There are many text books that deal admirably with the 
subjects of sentence betterment and the choice of words. A 
few are mentioned here. Most of them are high-school text 
books, and their treatment of the matters is too advanced for 
grammar school pupils. They are put here for the use of 
teachers, who will find in them many suggestions which they 
can use to advantage with their own classes. 

BETTERMENT OF THE SENTENCE. 

Hitchcock's "Practice Book in English Composition", pp. 1 19-136. 

"The Mother Tongue", Book II, pp. 427-441. 

Maxwell's "Writing in English", pp. 143-161. 

Hanson's "English Composition", pp. 131-141. 

Scott & Denney, "Elementary English Composition", pp. 80-100. 

Huntington's "Elementary English Composition", pp. 100-152. 

"Practice Work in English", (Knight) pp. 1 18-146. 

Bailey and Manley, Bc^ok II, pp. 124-130. 

Aldine Second Language Book, pp. 179, 180, 181, 195, 205. 

Gerrish & Cunningham, "Practical English Composition", pp. 169-215. 

Canby & Opdycke, "Elements of Composition", pp. 40-93- 

CHOICE OF WORDS. 

"Mother Tongue", Book II, pp. 396-402; 435-436. 

Maxwell's "Writing in English", pp. 187-205. 

"First Book of Composition" (Briggs & McKenney), pp. 55-75 T 

183-193; 197-213- 
Brooks's "English Composition", I, pp. 132-145- 
Gerrish & Cunningham's "Practical English Composition", pp. 

216-224. 
Canby & Opdycke's "Elements of Composition", pp. 160-187. 
Macdonald's "Foundation English", pp. 38-70. 
Hanson's "English Composition", pp. 142-166. 
Huntington's "Elementary English Composition", pp. 152-166. 



SEVENTH GRADE IIX 

II. Lines of Work. 

( i ) Sentences. 

(2) Paragraphs. 

(3) Friendly Letters. 

(4) Business Letters. 

(5) Testing mechanics and accuracy by occasional exercises 
in copying, dictation, and short reproduction. 
(Seventh grade children should write from dictation at 
the rate of about 21 words a minute, according to the 
Courtis scale.) 

III. Topics for Original Paragraphs. 

The topics here given are drawn mostly from experience. 
In keeping with what was said under the head of oral composi- 
tion for this grade, the teacher may here enlarge the field to 
include topics chosen from the things that interest the pupils in 
their studies and in their outside reading. The teacher should 
read all that has been said in earlier grades with reference to 
training pupils in the art of "elaborating" simple themes in such 
way as to make them interesting. Especially should she study 
the two examples printed under the sixth grade oral work, 
illustrating the wrong way and the right way of handling a 
topic. The chapter in the foreword entitled "Subjects Should 
Be Personal, Definite, and Brief" will bear frequent re-reading. 

It is not necessary that all pupils in a seventh grade class 
should write upon the same subject at the same time. There 
is no greater drudgery than trying to write upon an unfamiliar 
subject or an uninteresting one. No habit of good writing can 
be formed without a ground work of interest. Subjects should 
be personal. What subject that is worth writing about can be 
personal to forty individuals? The same subject for a whole 
class will, in most cases, require much oral development. Ideas 
must be drawn out of the class, or handed out to them ready 
made by the teacher. Only the children whom the subject 
touches personally can contribute anything worth while to the 
preliminary oral discussion, and onlv these will write about it 
with any heart. The other papers will be weak imitations. 



112 SEVENTH GRADE 

My First Experience on Skates. 
A Boy Scout Hike. 
Celebrating Our Football Victory. 
A Dangerous Moment in the Auto. 
Bobbing for Apples on Hallowe'en. 
What the Audience Laughed at Most at Our Circus. 
How to Lay Out a Baseball Diamond. 

The First Base Man on the Baseball Team. (Each position to 
be made the subject of a paragraph.) 



An Amusing Mishap in School. 

The School House. 

How Our School Observed Peace Day. 

How I got My Newsboy's License. 

Does it Pay to Stay in School Until Graduation? 

Persuade a Boy Who is Unfair in the School Games to Give Others 

a Chance. 
Fifteen Minutes in Our Assembly Hall. 
My Hopes on Promotion Day. 

The Best Number on the Program of Our School Entertainment. 
When the Master Comes in for a Lesson. 
A Grand Army Man at Our School. 
My First Day in the Grade. 



What a Visitor to Lawrence Should See. 

Noon at the Mill Gate. 

The Soldiers' Monument on Memorial Day. 

On the Falls Bridge. 

At the Fire Station When an Alarm Rings. 

Essex Street on Saturday Afternoon. 

A Visit to the Reservoir. 

At the Corner Store. 

The Spring Freshet Seen from the Falls Bridge. 

The Most Attractive Window on Essex Street. 

The Busiest Corner of Essex Street. 



When Our Engine Goes to a Fire. 

An Experience as a Newsboy. 

The Nine O'Clock Curfew Bells. 

How My Caterpillar Turned Into a Butterfly. 

The Ambulance Goes by. 

The Patrol Wagon Arrives. 

When the Organ Grinder Comes to Our Street. 

My Most Interesting Neighbor. 

The Store Windows at Christmas. 

A Good Citizen. 

A Neglected Tenement House. 

How a Cat Prepares to go to Sleep. 



SEVENTH GRADE T ,3 

How I Earned My First Money. 

How to Behave in a Boat. 

How to Get Off a Car. 

Why I'd Rather Be a Boy. 

Why I am a Member of the Humane Society. 

Why Boys and Girls Should Learn to Swim. 

How My Bird Changes His Clothes. 

Why Girls are More Useful to Their Parents Than Boys. 

IV. Technicalities. 

Review the technicalities taught in the earlier grades, when- 
ever the written work of your class indicates the need of review. 
Do not waste time in reviewing, just for the sake of reviewing. 
Take care that no time is spent on technicalities which are not 
required, and which have keen purposely omitted from this 
course. 

In the second half of the year, it may become necessary 
to give some attention to the use of the comma within the 
sentence. The restriction of the written sentence to the simple 
form in grades below the seventh, has made unnecessary any 
reference to this use of the comma before. Presumably the 
work of expanding the sentence, which is to be taken up in 
the second half of the seventh year (see "Written Aims") will 
result in the more general use of the longer sentence, which may 
be of such form as to require the use of commas to separate 
the members. Many pupils will use the comma naturally in this 
way. Indeed, most children punctuate their sentences without 
being told how to do it. They absorb the idea unconsciously 
from the punctuation of the matter they read in and out of 
school. There may be no need of your teaching this use of 
the comma at all. And unless the failure to use it is general, it 
would be best not to bother about it. If it is taught at all, it 
should be taught only in its very simplest uses. Children cannot 
make fine distinctions. The teacher who harps on the use of 
commas will find a great many of them in her pupils' papers, 
but a large proportion of them will be in the wrong place. 

Spend no time on the comma in a series or on the comma 
in direct address. Spend very little time upon quotation marks, 
and make no reference to "broken" or "divided" quotations. 
See that the punctuation of the letter form is thoroughly known. 



H4 



SEVENTH GRADE 



V. Words for Special Spelling Drill. 

(Review words are printed in italics.) 



absence 


describe 


their 


all ready 


friend 


there 


all right 


laughed 


too 


already 


library 


truly 


attacked 


loose 


weather 


believe 


minute 


wholly 


certainly 


perhaps 


written 


changing 


really 




choose 


surprised 




anxious 


disappeared 


necessary 


chief 


finally 


precede 


copied 


foreign 


principal 


cordially 


government 


probably 


despair 


grammar 


respectfully 


disagreeable 


judgment 


sincerely 



VL Written Standards. 

It will be noticed that the selections printed in this course 
as examples of oral and written composition are free from 
errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This does not 
make them any less useful as standards than if the childish 
errors had been retained. It is not expected that children are 
going to write papers that are mechanically perfect from be- 
ginning to end. On the other hand, there is nO doubt that 
the relatively simple requirements for written work laid down 
in this course of study make for conditions much more favorable 
for correct work upon the part of the pupils than was the case 
when the requirements were less definite. The restriction of 
the sentences below the seventh grade to the simple form, except 
in the case of pupils who have more than ordinary language 
power, will keep out of the compositions most of the loose and 
disjointed construction that characterizes children's unrestricted 
writing. The errors, therefore, will be chiefly those of spelling 
and grammar, and the omission of the capital and the closing 
mark. Children can always be counted upon to furnish their 
quota of such errors. They would not be children, if they did 



SEVENTH GRADE H5 

not. Still, the ideal of both teacher and pupil should be a 
paragraph free from errors of this very sort, and for that reason 
the printed standards have been made free from them. 

Christmas Windows. 
The other day I watched two children gazing at the toys 
in a large store window. The little girl was greatly taken with a 
large doll that had golden hair and big blue eyes. Her tiny brother 
clapped his hands at the sight of a little white woolly bear, that 
held his arms out toward him. Each new toy they spied was 
greeted with cries of delight. After a while they moved farther 
up the street to gaze into other windows. As they went out of 
sight I thought how nice it would be to be rich. For then I could 
make many poor children happy on Christmas morning. 

VII. Comments and Cautions. 

The idea that criticism must be helpful, sympathetic, and 
constructive needs to be kept in mind. Webster defines 
criticism as "the art of judging with knowledge and propriety 
of the beauties and faults of a literary performance." Too 
often in school composition only the latter half of the definition, 
"judging of the faults," is considered criticism, with the result 
that the child becomes discouraged and indifferent to his writing. 
Especially is this true when the corrections are numerous. 
Some mistakes (except of form) should pass unnoticed with 
many pupils. What is the good of having pupils' papers 
corrected and recorrected until all errors disappear and little 
remains of the original except the handwriting? Such papers 
are not evidence of the children's ability to express themselves 
in good English, but rather of the teacher's ability to substitute 
her knowledge for the pupil's, perhaps without realizing that 
she is doing so. On the other hand, the teacher who can 
stimulate her pupils to greater efforts by her judicious appre- 
ciation of what they have already done will succeed in making 
them enthusiastic users of English. A sense of humor is what 
we need, not sarcasm. 



I i 6 EIGHTH GRADE 

EIGHTH GRADE. 
ORAL. 

(One-half of the language time in the eighth grade is given 

to oral work.) 

I. Aims. 

The aim in oral work for the eighth grade is, as was set 
forth in the foreword, to turn out pupils at the end of the year 
able to stand before the class and talk for a few minutes upon 
a subject zvithin the range of their knowledge or experience, 
speaking plainly, in clean-cut sentences, and without common 
grammatical mistakes. The points emphasized in the seventh 
year (erect standing, clear enunciation, etc.), should be re- 
emphasized in the eighth grade. The oral composition topics 
should take a wider range, and much individual freedom of 
choice allowed. Some of the work at first, and most of it later 
in the year, should be assigned in advance, so that pupils may 
learn how to look up material, and study how to arrange and 
present it effectively. A few oral compositions presented with 
care, and criticised fully and deliberately by the tencher and the 
class, are better than many less carefully prepared and com- 
mented upon by the teacher in a hurried, superficial fashion. 
In the course of the criticism opportunity will be given for 
many pupils to talk, and all will learn from the discussion much 
that will improve their own talking. Care must be taken that 
these prepared oral compositions are not memorized. It is 
proper that pupils should fix in their minds the chief points of 
the matter they intend to talk about in class ; but the practice of 
learning the matter of their oral compositions by heart should 
never be permitted. Teachers should be careful, also, that such 
prepared compositions are given in the pupils' own language. 
It is hardly possible for a teacher of experience not to know 
when a pupil tries to palm off as his own composition something 
that he has learned or copied from a book or a newspaper. 

Debates furnish excellent opportunity for training in talking 



EIGHTH GRADE I 17 

clearly and to the point. The management by the pupils of 
the regular morning exercises, of special day exercises, and 
occasionally of the recitation, gives opportunity for the exercise 
of initiative and responsibility, and cultivates self-possession 
and self-poise. A teacher's success in accomplishing results in 
oral composition lies in her ability to arouse the interest of her 
pupils, in furnishing real motives and the most natural con- 
ditions for the work, in her skill in directing the choice of 
topics, and in her power to make the criticism encouraging, 
helpful, and constructive. 

II. Examples of Oral Compositions. 

Calendars. 
There are very many kinds of calendars. In business offices 
there are large ones with big black figures. In the sitting room at 
home are artistic little affairs on different colors of cardboard. 
Sometimes we see upon them pictures of a historical subject, while 
others may be reproductions of pictures from the brush of famous 
artists. People who like to make these dainty little affairs are now 
engaged in making them to present to friends on Christmas. They 
will be as useful presents, as New Year's will soon be here. The 
children of the public schools make very pretty ones for their 
parents. 

"Bobs." 
1 have a little Boston terrier, Bobs, named after General 
Roberts, who died a little while ago. A white mark runs up the 
middle of his head, and ends with a white neck, which is followed 
by a smooth brindle. Two of his feet have brown stockings and 
white shoes, the others brown stockings and brown shoes. He has 
a little screw tail, the end of it being white, and an undershot jaw, 
with very irregular teeth. Sometimes I try to brush them with a 
doll's tooth brush. He knows many tricks that I have taught him, 
and on the whole he is a very smart dog. 

Gallows Hill. 
One nf the most interesting places in Salem is Gallows Hill. 
In the winter of 1691 a few girls of Salem by uttering strange 
cries made the people believe they were bewitched. When they 
were asked who bewitched them, at first they would not reply, but 
later named some innocent old women as the witches. The women 
were tried and put in jail. Soon many others, and even a small 
child of four, were found guilty. Some of the women were hanged 
on Gallows Hill. It is a very steep, rocky hill. The iron ends of 
the gallows frame may still be seen in the ledges on the summit. 



n8 



EIGHTH GRADE 



The Poultry Show. 
For the last few days City Hall has been filled with hundreds 
of fancy poultry and pigeons, and the noise they made was anything 
but musical. The geese were gray and white, with large bills, and 
so tall that their heads touched the wires of the tops of their cages. 
There was a crowd always gathered about the chicken incubators. 
In one there were some tiny fluffy chicks just out of the shell, and 
in another they were running busily about. The pigeons were very 
pretty. A lovely one won a cup. The fan-tail pigeons strutted 
about in their cages like small peacocks. Another kind had gay 
plumes on their heads. Many of the cages had ribbon prizes hung 
about them. 

The Longfellow House in Portland. 
In the city of Portland, Maine, on Congress Street, there 
is an interesting little house. It stands a short distance back from 
the main street. The people of Portland call it the Longfellow 
mansion, because the' beloved poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
was born in it. It is a brick mansion, three stories high, with 
chimneys of the high, old-fashioned kind. There are certain days 
that are set apart for the privilege of letting strangers visit this 
home and examine its many treasures. I read many famous names 
in the register of visitors in the hall. 



III. Common Errors of Speech. 

(Note: The teacher should read the chapter on "Common 
Errors of Speech" which is printed in an Appendix, and the 
comments made under this section in all the grades from the 
first to the seventh.) 



There is enough pencils. 
I done my examples. 
You was right. 
Neither of the girls have it. 
It don't seem right. 



We all seen the ball game. 
Two of the wheels come off. 
I ain't got none. 



Who did this come from? 
He'll meet you and I. 



I like them colors. 

I heard of vou leaving. 



I left my book to home. 
'She is all better to-day. 
1 have quite a few pears. 
I like these kind of examples. 
They wouldn't leave him play. 
They done it pretty good. 
Can I take my history home? 
'That's different than I expected. 



I've learned it to her. 

I don't know if I shall go. 

Do it like they do. 

Where are you at? 

Each may take their pencils. 

The lesson ain't in the book. 



EIGHTH GRADE 

I must of been late. He makes 'em think! 

I reco'nized the story. 



119 



IV. Comments and Cautions. 

Should the pupils' answers to all questions be made in 
complete statements? That depends. While a subject is being 
developed by the teacher in logical order by questions, a full 
statement might hinder the quick grasp of a point on the part 
of the pupil, and might break the train of the teacher's 
questioning. At such times, full statements are not necessary 
and need not be insisted upon. The same is true in conversa- 
tional exercises involving questions. Insistence upon complete 
statements at such times would be establishing a condition that 
is unnatural, unusual in life, and peculiar to the schoolroom. 
/// the recitation, however, the answers should be given, almost 
always, in complete statements. 

It will not do to pass by mistakes on the ground that the 
pupil cannot think and speak correctly at the same time. That 
is precisely what he must learn to do, and he must carefully 
practice it in every study. 

Every recitation should strengthen the habit of connected 
thinking and correct speech, cast into complete sentences. 

WRITTEN. 

(One-half of the language time in the eighth grade is given 
to written zvork.) 

I. Aims. 

This course of study has been built upon the conviction 
that the written language work in the grammar school should 
be confined to a few fundamental things, and that there should 
be constant opportunity for practice in these few fundamental 
things. In the preface the following standard was set up as 
the goal of grammar school teaching. It is believed that the 



120 EIGHTH GRADE 

ability the standard calls for is the kind that will function most 
usefully in the life of the average grammar school graduate, 
and that the degree of ability it represents is one reasonably 
possible to be acquired by children of ordinary capacity during 
eight years of school. The standard was thus defined : 

"The ability to write with fair facility an original 
paragraph upon a subject within the range of the pupil's 
experience or interests." 

Such a paragraph should show : 
i. An absolute mastery of "the sentence idea". 

2. Freedom from glaring grammatical mistakes. 

3. Correct spelling of all ordinary words. 

4. Unfailing use of the commonest marks in punctua- 
tion. 

5. Some evidence of attention to matters of sentence 
structure and to the choice of words. 

6. Some degree of power to organize and arrange 
ideas around a central thought. 

In developing this power to write, each grade has its share 
of the work to do. Each grade has its own standard of 
accomplishment set down for it in black and white. With the 
work each grade is called upon to do and with the standard 
of writing ability each grade is expected to reach, the eighth 
grade teacher should make herself thoroughly familiar. Before 
starting upon the new work assigned to her grade, she should 
ascertain what the new class knows about written composition 
when it comes to her and what language habits it possesses. 
Upon the basis of the knowledge thus discovered, she should 
then plan her work for the year with a view to round out and 
complete the training which the course of study as a whole 
contemplates. If deficiencies of a general character are revealed 
by these early tests of their writing ability, the teacher must 
face the task of removing them so far as she can. There is no 
other year left in which to do it. It is important, of course, 
that the ability of the new class should be tested on the basi:; 
of seventh grade standards, not of eighth grade standards. 
One of the reasons why teachers so often find fault at first with 



EIGHTH GRADE I2 r 

the pupils who come up to them from a lower grade is because 
their judgment of the new comers in September is unconsciously 
colored by their memory of what the previous class was able 
to do in June. But if any large portion of the class is found 
deficient in the fundamentals of writing, these matters must be 
brought up to the standard before any of the advance work 
suggested for the grade is attempted. It is of no use to try to 
teach the rudiments of style to children who cannot write correct 
sentences. 

The advance work for the grade, when the class is ready 
for it, should be a continuation of the work in sentence better- 
ment and in the choice of words which was begun in the seventh 
grade. The sentence work should include transforming, com- 
bining, condensing and otherwise varying them, with the purpose 
of making children see how they can say what they have to say 
more pleasingly and more effectively. This work should not be 
overdone, however. The most that is sought through the work 
in sentence structure is to remove from the written paragraphs 
the monotony of the "primer sentence", which has been 
purposely cultivated in the grades below the seventh. A good 
many children naturally use the longer sentence, and to such 
children its use has not been denied in the lower grades. The 
short sentence has been exclusively required only from those 
who show themselves unable to use any other kind without 
getting into trouble. If, therefore, the eighth grade teacher 
finds most of the class using in their compositions a reasonable 
variety of sentence structure, she will be wise not to spend 
very much time on the sentence work. It is a matter that has 
to be left largely to the teacher's judgment. 

The books mentioned under this topic in the seventh 
grade treat fully the subject of sentence improvement, and to 
these the eighth grade teacher is referred. Most of these books 
are not adapted for use with grammar school pupils ; but the 
teacher will find much material in them which she can adapt 
to the needs and ability of her class. The prose literature that 
the children read offers an excellent field for the study ot 
sentence structure. Lead them constantly to observe how good 



j 22 EIGHTH GRADE 

writers manage their sentences. Similarly, passages selected 
from authors not read by the children may be reduced to short 
sentences by the teacher and given to the children to combine 
into longer ones. Afterwards let them compare their efforts 
with the passage as the author wrote it. Exercises in com- 
bining sentences which are made up by the teacher or taken at 
random from a text book generally leave the pupils uncertain 
of the success of their attempts, because of the lack of any 
positive authority as to what the best form of the combinations 
should be. The opportunity afforded to compare the pupils' 
efforts with the author's original adds greatly to the interest of 
the exercise, and the frequent act of comparing their work 
with that of writers of repute impresses upon them more deeply 
than any amount of talking can do, the difference between their 
crude work and the finished workmanship of the master writer. 
If pupils can be brought to appreciate understanding^ the art 
-of good writers and be led by reason of it to try to improve 
their own workmanship, the chief object of this work will have 
been gained. Always, however, the teacher must guard against 
the mistake of making children so conscious of their style that 
it will spoil their freedom of expression. There is danger, too, 
that too much work in combining and transforming sentences 
as a separate exercise will lead to an artificial style, or what 
is worse, a "wordy" style. Sentences are not improved by 
putting more words into them than are necessary, but children's 
well-intentioned efforts to round out their sentences often result 
in making them merely "wordy". A clause is no stronger 
than a phrase, nor a phrase than a word, unless something is 
distinctly gained by the employment of the longer expression. 
The . monotonous "which" clause — one of the first products of 
exercises in combining short sentences — is likely to prove a 
nuisance unless the teacher knows how to head it off. 

This work in sentence improvement should go hand in hand 
with the writing of original paragraphs, and should not sidetrack 
the latter for any considerable period during the year. The 
•only way the teacher can be sure that the special exercises in 
.sentence structure are doing her pupils any good is the evidence 



EIGHTH GRADE 



I -'3 



of better sentences in the original paragraphs they write from 
day to day. 

In the seventh grade a beginning was made to teach 
children to be more attentive to the words they use in their 
written paragraphs. This point should be made still more of 
in the eighth grade. The teacher should do all she can to teach 
them the value of expressive words. This work should not 
occupy any particular period during the year, but should run 
through all the teaching from the first. The books mentioned 
under this section in the seventh grade will give teachers 
excellent material and suggestions, although the treatment of 
the subject in most of these books is of a character more suit- 
able to high school pupils. The literature read in class furnishes 
a constant supply of material, if the teacher will make good 
use of it. In addition, she should from time to time read to 
the children paragraphs illustrating the use of apt and ex- 
pressive words. The books referred to contain many such 
paragraphs. An excellent exercise may be provided in this 
fashion : The teacher chooses a paragraph particularly strong in 
respect to the choice of words. This she "rewrites", sub- 
stituting "weak" words for the author's effective ones. The 
paragraph in this shape is then written upon the board, or a 
copy of it given to each pupil. The pupils are then instructed 
to substitute for the "weak" words (which the teacher has 
indicated in her copy by underscoring ) words which the children 
think are better ones. After they have done their best, they 
are then shown the author's original. The value of this 
exercise lies in the opportunity it gives the pupils to compare 
their best efforts with the work of the trained writer. 

It is not expected that eighth grade children will become 
expert in the use of words in a single year. The chief thing to 
be sought through this kind of teaching is to train children 
to give attention to the words they read and the words they 
write, so that all of them will not be content all the time to put 
down the first word that comes into their minds. 

Care should be taken that children are not led to believe 
that we want them to use "flowery" language. This is no 



124 



EIGHTH GRADE 



longer a merit in any writing, and is particularly bad form in 
children's writing. Naturalness, simplicity, and sincerity are 
the qualities of style to be encouraged, and the moment children 
begin to be "flowery", these qualities disappear from their 
writing. They have at their command only a few worn out 
phrases, like "the murmuring brook", "the moon's silvery light", 
"the white blanket of the snow", and similar stale and senti- 
mental commonplaces. Besides, they lack that sure sense of 
appropriateness which saves the trained writer from offending 
against good taste by over-adornment of language. The two 
paragraphs which follow illustrate the effect of the conventional 
phrase and worn-out diction, just referred to, in contrast with 
that which comes from the use of fresh, natural, and vivid 
words. Each describes a day in Spring. 

"Canoeing is an ideal sport for lovers of nature. A spring 
day is a day which the canoeist longs for. It enables him to drink 
in nature with all its splendors. The leaves of the trees are just 
beginning to sprout and convey an expression of joy to humanity. 
The birds are chirping cheerfully and welcome you with a beckon 
of the head, as you glide softly over the smooth waters. The 
stream flows on with the utmost vigor, and the sound of its 
ripple mingles with the songs of the birds. Everything is in 
harmony with nature. Even your canoe appears to be enjoying 
the scene, .for it seems to require less strength than ever to propel 
it. But at last you draw a deep sigh of regret when the veil of 
darkness falls and puts an end to your enjoyment." 

"There is one day when all things are tired, and the very 
smells, as they drift on the heavy air, are old and used. One 
cannot explain this, but it feels so. Then there is another day — to 
the eye nothing whatever has changed — when all the smells are 
new and delightful, and the whiskers of the jungle people quiver 
to their roots, and the winter hair comes away from their sides 
in long, draggled locks. Then, perhaps, a little rain falls, and the 
trees and the bushes and the bamboos and the mosses and the 
juicy-leaved plants wake with a noise of growing that you can 
almost hear, and under this noise runs, day and night, a deep 
hum. That is the noise of the Spring — a vibrating boom which 
is neither bees, nor falling water, nor the wind in the tree tops, 
but the purring of the warm, happy world." 

It is not to be expected that children can be taught to 
write of a Spring day as Kipling can ; but at least they can be 
prevented from writing in the fashion of the first paragraph. 



EIGHTH GRADE 



125 



II. Lines of Work. 

1. Words. 

2. Sentences. 

3. Paragraphs. 

4. Letters, both friendly and business. 

5. Testing Accuracy and Knowledge of Form by Copying, 
Dictation and the Short Reproduction. 

(According to the Courtis standard, eighth grade 
children should write from dictation at a rate of about 
2T, words a minute.) 

III. Topics for Original Paragraphs. 

The topics listed here, like most of the topics printed under 
the earlier grades, are drawn from the material of children's 
experience. In this grade, however, the topics may be given 
a wider scope, so as to include subjects within the range of the 
pupils' reading, at home or in school, the idea being that eighth 
grade pupils should have opportunity to write about any subject 
in which they have a genuine interest, whether it be something 
which they themselves have experienced or about which they 
know only through their reading or study. Any subject is a good 
one which ( 1 ) they know well enough to discuss interestingly, 
(2) which they can handle within the limits of a single para- 
graph, and (3) which will permit the expression of their own 
thoughts in their own language. Pupils should for the most 
part choose their own subjects, and should always have two or 
three in mind, so that they may be well thought oat before the 
time for writing comes. Barrett Wendell says, "Words and 
sentences are subjects of revision, compositions are subjects of 
prevision". Pupils should be trained to keep their eyes open, 
day after day, for good subjects to write about, even though 
at the time none is called for, and to develop the habit of 
"thinking over" the topic, to select the particular phase of it 
that can be best worked up, and to decide what details may be 
most effectively told. 

Many of the topics printed under the preceding grades', are 
quite as suitable for eighth grade pupils as they are for younger 



I2 6 EIGHTH GRADE 

children. The topics have been distributed among the grades 
with some reference to the interests, age, and maturity of the 
children in the different grades. But a little adaptation wilL 
make any of them usable in the eighth grade. 

Sliding Down Essex Hill. 

A Thrilling Moment at the Bonfire. 

The Play That Won the Game. 

What it Means to be a Boy Scout. 

What it Means to be a Camp Fire Girl. 

A Game That Trains Me to be Quick. 

"A Man On Second and Two Gone." 

How to Make a Raft. 

A Mishap at the School Picnic. 

A True Fish Story. 

"Making Up" for the Hallowe'en Party. 

Being a Baseball Fan at Riverside Park. 

The Hero of the Baseball Team. 



How to Behave When a Visitor Comes. 

How to Behave When the Fire Drill Signal Rings. 

Why I Like to go to the School. 

Why I Want to Stay in School After I am Fourteen. 

Why I Want to Go to Work When I am Fourteen. 

Why History (or any other study) is the Best School Study. 

Why Geography is the Most Useful Study. 

Convince Your Teacher That You Ought to Have an Extra Holiday; 

Something Not on the Program. 

Why Won the Spelling Match. 

My Idea of High School. 



The New Boulevard. 

Up the Merrimack With a Camera. 

Glen Forest in Winter. 

Salisbury Beach in Winter. 

My Camp at Island Pond. 

Den Rock in Winter. 

Canal Street at Noon. 

The Lights Along the Merrimack from the Falls Bridge. 

The Oldest House in Lawrence. 

How Traffic is Regulated on Essex Street. 



A Package I Found. 

The Fire Engine Horses. 

How I Paid for a Broken Window. 



EIGHTH GRADE 

When Mother Calls "Get up !" 

How I Lost My Belief in Santa Claus. 

My Paper Route. 

A Busy Corner. 

A Fleet of Ducks on the Spicket. 

The Balloon Man on Circus Day. 

How I Feel When I First Wear a New Suit to School. 

My First Night in a Tent. 

Waiting for the Postman on Christmas Morning. 

How I Made My Collection of Stamps. 

My Yard After a Snow Storm. 

Our Memorial Day Program. 

Sounds on a Cold Winter Morning. 

When the City Awakes. 

Our Garden Toad. 

What I Would Do with Five Dollars. 

How We Made a Fireless Cooker. 

How to Give "First Aid to the Injured". 

How to Make Out a Money Order. 

How to Set an Alarm Clock. 

Why Winter is Better for Fun Than Summer. 

Which Has the Better Time — a Girl or Boy? 

Why I Like "The Christmas Carol". 

The "Newsies" on Election Night 



The Difficulties of Studying at Home. 

My First Ruhher Boots. 

How it Feels to go Barefoot. 

My First Venture in the Surf. 

When I Got Seasick. 

Learning to Dive. 

Practicing My Piano Lesson. 

Seeking the First Mayflowers. 

When the Bluehirds Come. 

The Circus Kitchen. 

Driving the Tent Stakes. 

When the Elephants Go By. 

The Steam Organ. 

A Scene on Election Night. 

Card Day. 

Excitement at a Track Meet. 

The Drudgery of Washing Dishes. 

Spring Hats. 

Staying After School. 

The Spilled Dinner Pail. 

Collecting Voting Cards. 

An Icy Morning. 

How to Ring a Fire Alarm. 

When the Ash Man Comes. 



12/ 



128 



EIGHTH GRADE 



Wash Day at Home. 

Cleaning House Time. 

Tricks I Have Taught Our Cat. 

Safety First. 

The World's Series on the Newspaper Bulletins. 

Gas Bill Day. 

The Car Sprinkler. 

The Relay Race. 



IV* Words for Special Spelling- DrilL 

(Review words are printed in italics.) 



almost 


friend 


receive 


anxious 


government 


respectfully 


beginning 


grammar 


separate 


believe 


heard 


sincerely 


business 


judgment 


their 


changing 


knew 


there 


chief 


laughed 


too 


coming 


minute 


tried 


different 


necessary 


truly 


disappeared 


oblige 


using 


disappoint 


principal 


written 


foreign 


really 





accept 
college 
disease 
eighth 



excitement 
finally 
immediately 
knowledge 



ninth 
occasion 
preferred 
proceed 



V. Written Standards. 



The Chimney Sweep. 
A common sight in any large English city is a chimney- 
sweep. Amid the din of the noisy street may be heard his shrill 
voice calling "Sweep !, Sweep !" He is clad in overalls and loose 
jacket, and his face and hands are covered with soot and grime. 
He carries a ladder, and a brush so constructed as to be made larger 
or smaller as the size of the flue demands. The brush is attached 
to a long coil of rope by which it may be lowered into or raised 
from the chimney. He is not a very welcome visitor to the good 
house wife, for he brings dirt wherever he goes. 



EIGHTH GRADE 



129 



Imitating Grandma. 

A dear little girl sat in a big arm-chair out of all proportion 
to her size. The little curly head, peeping from a large bonnet 
looked like a little chicken breaking through an egg-shell. A large 
pair of spectacles adorned her flat little nose. She was making 
believe knit, as she had seen her grandma do so often. When I 
saw her she was all stooped over as if she were trying to pick up 
a lost stitch, and her two little fat hands worked clumsily at a big 
stocking. The little girl, bonnet, glasses, and stocking were a good 
imitation of grandma. 



Sunny Jim. 

A short, fat little man was the landlord, — so fat that he 
seemed in danger of bursting his clothes. About his ears was a 
growth of curly hair, but his shiny head was as smooth as a 
billiard ball. His face was always wreathed in smiles. A pair of 
kindly blue eyes peered out under white feathery eyebrows. A 
squat nose occupied the middle of his face, looking as if it had been 
put on by some bill poster, as it was not exactly straight. Perhaps 
from constant smiling, the corners of his mouth were slightly 
turned up. He was the very soul of merriment and good humor. 



Benjamin Franklin. 

This proverbial old gentleman, Benjamin Franklin by name, 
had a round, full, kindly face. His shoulders were slightly bent 
from hard work, but his carriage was stately nevertheless. He had 
a firm mouth and nose, not unlike those of Washington. He was 
bald in front, but had long flowing locks on the back of his wise 
old head. His twinkling eyes showed him to be a man of good 
humor. He wore the clothes of his period, and the day he walked 
down the street in Philadelphia one could not but think he was a 
wise old proverb escaped from "Poor Richard's Almanac". 



Excitement in My Neighborhood. 

Last night pedestrians on Newbury Street had a very 
narrow escape from death. About seven o'clock the trolley wire 
fell to the street with a snap, a hiss, and a vivid flash of white 
light. At this moment a car appeared, and a motorman and a 
conductor stood guard over the wire until, with a clanging of 
bells and shouting of men, the emergency wagon appeared. To 
Help out with the excitement a runaway horse charged straight for 
the wire, but strong hands stopped him in time. 



130 



EIGHTH GRADE 



A Rural Village. 
In the central part of Maine lies the little farming town of 
Etna, nestled among the hills. The town has its center at the 
meeting of two roads. Back of it flows a small brook which finds 
its way into a pond whose quiet waters can be seen behind a 
fringe of trees. Around the pond is a dense growth of pines, 
whose odor is strong upon the warm summer air. At the center 
of the town is the triangular village green, and, close by, the white 
steepled meeting house and the village school. It is a perfect 
type of the New England rural village. 



APPENDIX I 



13* 



APPENDIX L 

Sounds Presenting Difficulty, and Some Exercises Designed to 
Improve Enunciation and Pronunciation. 



(a) Sounds Presenting Difficulty. 

1. The final g omitted in ing ; comin' instead of coming. 

2. (Dropping final t or d; toV instead of told ; an' instead of and. 

3. Introducing a letter or syllable wrongly, e. g., umbcrclla instead 
of umbrella. 

4. The two sounds of th, the aspirate and the voiced sound, as in 
pith and then, are confused. Thus with is made to rhyme 
with pith. Th becomes t as in t'row for throw. 

5. The letter r is often added when none ought to be heard, as 
"I saw-r a ship". 

6. Careful attention should be given to the proper pronunciation 
of the vowel u as in Tuesday, duty. 

7. th is often pronounced as d or t — as found in dem for them or 
tree for three. 



(b) Some Difficulties Met by Foreign Children. 
The foreign -born child has special difficulties in pronun 
ciation. The following are the most common: 

1. Mispronunciation of ng, final and medial. Final wg (as in "sing" 
or any present participal) is frequently pronounced as nk. Medial 
ng is frequently mispronounced ; e. g., "singing" is pronounced 
*'sing-ing". "Finger" is sometimes mispronounced as "fing-er", 
"single" as "sing-le", "linger" as "ling-er", "hanger" as 
"hang-ger", "anger" as "ang-er", "bringer" as "bring-ger", etc., 
and "len'th" and "stren'th" are heard for "length" and 
"strength". 

2. s and sh are apt to be improperly vocalized, becoming s and zh ; 
as "acid" becomes "azid", "creases" becomes "creazes", "assure" 
becomes "azhure", etc. On the other hand, many say "wass" for 
"was", "whereass" for "whereas", etc. 

3. The most common mispronunciation of vowels is the confounding 
of the sounds of oi and er; by which "oil" becomes "earl", 
"join" becomes "jern", "oyster" becomes "erster", etc. 



132 



APPENDIX I 



(c) Words Commonly Mispronounced. 

The following words illustrate some of the sounds that are 
troublesome, or which people are too lazy to bring out clearly. 
The teacher can add many words to the list. 



arctic 


elm 


new 


again 


every 


often 


athlete 


fellow 


overalls 


attacked 


general 


perhaps 


asked 


geography 


pillow 


been 


govern 


poem 


business 


government 


poetry 


catch 


grocery 


potato 


cemetery 


height 


recognize 


children 


history 


strength 


chimney 


hollow 


studied 


deaf 


hundred 


sword 


delivery 


jaw 


though 


depths 


jewelry 


thought 


different 


kept 


through 


discovery 


law 


tomorrow 


drawing 


length 


usually 


drowned 


library 


yellow 


eleven 


machinery 





(d) Suggested Drills. 
Drill on words and phrases like the following can be made 
very helpful : 



Sleep, sleek, sleet, sleeve. 

Twelfth, breadth, length, depth, strength, width. 

Particularly, especially, certainly. 

Just, worst, crust, finest, youngest, greatest, breakfast. 

Kindness, goodness, helpless, thoughtless, careless. 

Give me, let me, was he, I don't know, don't you, at all. 

Whittle, whistle, wheel, white, when, whether, which. 

Would you, could you, did you, can you, had you. 

This one, that one, which one, let her go, let him do it. 



(e) In General. 

Give drill lessons to correct faults of enunciation, until the 
pupils form the habit of avoiding the faults in ordinary speech. 
Show the proper position and use of the necessary organs of 
speech involved in the production of the correct sound. 
Pronounce slowly, enunciate clearly and distinctly. With foreign 
children sound is of greater importance than the form in the 
beginning. 



APPENDIX I t ^ 

Give special attention to ear-training. 

Train the pupils to listen carefully to the teacher, to watch her 

speak, and to imitate her. 

Insist all the time upon careful enunciation, exact enunciation 

— no "winders'', no ''wan ters", or "saw 'im", no '"yeh's" or 

"yep's" for "yes". 



134 



APPENDIX II 



APPENDIX II. 

Selected Language Games, with an Analysis of the Common 
Errors in the Speech of Children. 

An Analysis of The Common Errors in Children's Speech. 

An inventory of the prevailing errors in the speech of 
children is a necessary preliminary to any rational attempt to 
improve the speech of children. Such an investigation was 
recently made in a school system comprising 3500 pupils. The 
teachers were requested to note the language errors of their 
pupils, and to classify them as verb-errors, double negatives, 
mispronunciations that could be consistently classed as language 
errors, misuse of pronouns, adverbial errors, and colloquialisms. 

The total number of mistakes observed, classified, and ex- 
pressed in percents are given here : 

First Grade Eighth Grade All Grades 

1. Verb-errors 49-5 36.6 40.1 

2. Double Negatives 3-6 2.9 3.4 

3. Mispronunciation 16.8 17.3 20.4 

4. Misuse of Pronouns 18.8 18.3 17.2 

5. Adverbial Errors 5.3 6.9 58 

6. Colloquialisms 8.2 13.3 12.9 

It will be seen from the above that : 

(1) The range of errors is small. The poor English 
lieard is due to frequent repetition of a few errors. 

(2) The percentage of each class of error is relatively 
constant for all grades. 

(3) This is evidence that persistent and organized effort 
was not made to eliminate the errors. The task, before it was 
analyzed, seemed so complex and hopeless, that teachers' efforts 
were scattered and futile. 



APPENDIX II 



135 



(4) The verb errors form a very large percentage of the 
total errors in each grade. 

(5) Of the verb forms, almost one half (see analysis 
below) are due to confusing the past tense and perfect 
participle. A dozen verbs form the bulk of the errors. 

A further analysis of the verb-errors brought out the 
following facts : 

(a) Confusing past tense and perfect participles occasioned 
nearly 50% of the verb-errors. 

(b) Mistakes in past tense and perfect participle of "see", 
"come", "do", and "go" represented one-tenth of all the errors 
scored. 

(c) Nine other verbs caused 6^2% of all the errors. 

(d) If children could be taught to use correctly the past 
tense and perfect participle of thirteen verbs, one-sixth of all 
the errors made by these children could be eliminated. 

An analysis of the common errors in the speech of the 
Lawrence school children would probably result in figures very 
similar to those that have been quoted. That is, about half 
the errors would be found to be those of verb forms, and a half 
of this half the result of misusing the forms of the past tense 
and the past participle. The preponderence of verb-errors is 
readily explained by the much more frequent use of the verb 
than of the other words open to misuse — like the pronoun and 
the adverb. The proportion of errors in the other items of 
the analysis would in all probability be found to approximate 
very closely to that revealed by the investigation here described. 
Human nature is much the same everywhere, and it has no 
more common expression than the manner in which it abuses 
the English language. 

Formal Language Games. 

One of the most successful means of correcting bad 
language forms in the primary grades and establishing right 
habits of speech, is the formal language game. In these the 



136 



APPENDIX II 



child is unconscious of. the ultimate aim of the teacher, though 
fully aware of the fact that a certain form must be used in 
order that the game be won. The teacher, however, is more suc- 
cessful with results than if she were to explain her intentions. 
She secures the functioning of language at the very time it is 
needed. The drill is not something wholly apart. It is inter- 
esting, because of the activity. Repetition is called forth by a 
natural situation, and the desired expression is in the focus 
of the child's attention. 

A few games that have proved very successful in the class- 
room are given as illustrations of the idea. The resourceful 
teacher will invent as many more as she will need. 



Drill 1. 

Throw, Threw — Catch, Caught. 

Have two lines of pupils standing opposite each other. 

Consider children in their seats as spectators. 

One child throws the ball to the opposite, and says : 

"I throw the ball." (or) "I am throwing the ball." 

The other child says : 

"I catch the ball." (or) "I am catching the ball." 

Ask child in seat: "What did he do?" 

"He threw the ball." 1 

"He caught the ball." r Spectators tell this. 

"He dropped the ball." * 

The teacher throws the ball, and asks : 

"What am I doing?" 

"What did I do?" 



Drill 2. 

"It Isn't." 

Leader. "I've thought of a word that rhymes with door." 

Jimmie. "Is it part of any apple?" 

Leader. "No, it isn't 'core'." 

Ethel. "Is it what I did to my dress?" 

Leader. "No, it isn't 'tore'." 

Jean. "Is it what lions do?" 

Leader. "Yes, it is 'roar'." 

Now Jean, the successful, "thinks of a word" and the 
guessing continues by definitions. 



APPENDIX II J37 

This game never fails to give pleasure. Ideas struggle for 
expression in comprehensible definitions and the rhythmic formula 

"No, it isn't " repeated again and again makes the correct 

verb form pleasantly familiar. 



Drill 3. 

Drill on Use of "Saw". 
Place a number of objects on teacher's desk. 

Have a row of children pass the desk, and tell what they saw. 
Limit them to the number of objects they must tell, by saying: 

"You may tell two objects." 
"You may tell three objects." 

The next child may tell four objects. 
Look out for careful placing of "and". 

"I saw a cap." (Not "sorra cap.") 

"I saw a cap and a book." 

"I saw a bonk, a marble, a top and a ball." 

In like manner : 

take — took 

find — found 

bring to me — brought 



Drill 4. 

Polite Use of "I". 

Teacher. "Mary and Alice may walk across the room." 
Teacher. "Mary, tell me what you and Alice did." 
Mary. "Me and Alice walked across the room." 
Alice. "I and Mary walked across the room." 
Teacher. "The polite way is to name Mary first." 
Alice. "Mary and I walked across the room." 
Teacher. "Alice told me very nicely. Mary, you tell me." 
Other corrections may be taken up in this way. 



Drill 5. 

It is I. ft is He. It is She. 

A child stands in the corner blindfolded. Another pupil stands 
beside him not blindfolded. A third child steps up and taps the first 
one on the back. Number one says, "Who is it?" The child who 
did the tapping says, "It is I". The blindfolded pupil then gives 
the name of the child he thinks it is. If he guesses correctly, the 
pupil not blindfolded says. "It is he", or "It is she". If not, he says. 
"It is not she", or "It is not he". "It is not Miss " 



138 



APPENDIX II 

Drill 6. 

Drill on: "I seen it"; "he done it"; "''me and him"; ''I got it 
off him" ; etc. 

Hold up a book or pencil. Ask these questions of different 
pupils: "What do you see?" "What did he see?" "What has he 
seen?" "What have they seen?" "What did they see?" "The 
answers to these questions and many more of the same type will 
call for the correct use of see, saw, seen. 

"What did John and you see?" "What did he and you see?" 
These questions call for answers with the correct use of "he and I". 

"Mary, get a ruler from Annie." "From whom did you get 
the ruler?" "From whom did Mary get the ruler?" This may 
be continued calling on different children and making use of 
different objects. "Where did you get it?" "Where did I, he, she, 
we, they get it?" The answers to questions of this sort will teach 
the children to use from instead of off. 



Drill 7- 

Drill on "I haven't any," or e ''I have no" 

"You may tell me about some things which you haven't." 
"If you haven't a book, how would you tell me?" 
''I haven't any book." 
"Tell it another way." 
"I have no book." 

'I haven't any ink." ''I have no ink." 

T haven't any pen." "I have no pen." 

T haven't a paper." "I have no paper." 

T haven't a crayola." "I have no crayola." 



Drill 8. 
Correct verb forms. 

"John, go to the closet, get a ruler, and put it on Mary's 
desk." 

"Tell me what you did." 

"I went to the closet, got a ruler, and put it on Mary's 
desk." 

"Mary, go to my desk, get two pencils, an eraser, and a key, 
and give them to Miss " 

"Tell ire what you did." 

"I went to your desk, got two pencils, an eraser, and a key, 
and gave them to Miss " 



APPENDTX II 



Drill 9- 



I3 l J 



Drill on "May 1?" for -Can 1?" 
Drill on wrong use of "Please." 

'Miss may I change my seat?" 

'Miss may I go home at eleven o'clock' 

'Miss may I have another paper?" 

'Miss may I have a book?" 

'Miss may I leave the room?" 

'Miss may I close the window ?" 



Drill io. 

Use of "Isn't". 

Have a list of words on board. A child steps out of the 
room, while one of the class goes to the board and selects a word. 
Then the first child comes in. and points to the word he thinks the 
boy selected, and asks : 

"Is it "every"?" 
"No, it isn't "every"." 
"Yes, it is "every"." 

Make use of this game to fix the pronunciation of trouble- 
some words and phrases in their minds, such as three, two, from, 
against, through, I had to, this afternoon, etc. 



Drill ii. 
Game of Fortune Telling. — Correct use of 'saw". 

To play this game the class should be divided into fortune 
seekers and fortune tellers. On the teacher's desk should be many 
pieces of paper, each having a picture on the under side ; the upper 
side should be blank. 

Each fortune seeker in turn should go to the desk, take a 
paper, peep at the under side, and then, turning to a fortune 
teller, say what he saw. The fortune teller should at once tell the 
seeker's fortune. Thus: If a fortune seeker should say, "I saw a 
ship," the fortune teller should say, "You will be a sailor". 

The following suggestions will help in the beginning, but the 
teacher and pupils should be able to think of other pictures and 
fortunes. 

"I saw a club." "You will be a policeman." 

"I saw a hat." "You will be a milliner." 

"I saw a ladder." "You will be a fireman." 

"I saw an automobile." "You will be a chauffeur." 



140 



APPENDIX II 

Drill 12. 

A Group of Similar Games. 

Game i. This game is like a spelling match. The teacher 
gives out the following words, one by one : 

a bubble a tulip a riddle 

a potato a whistle a wagon 

a lesson a picture a kite 

a bean bag a ball a flag 

a horn a leaf an answer 

The pupil whose turn it is, should reply instantly, choosing 
the most fitting answer from the following sentences. It is a 
failure to hesitate or to give the wrong answer : 

I grew it. I blew it. I flew it. 

I threw it. I drew it. I knew it. 

Game 2. For another game, the teacher may give out the 
same words, and the pupil whose turn it is may respond instantly 
with one of the following questions : 

"Have you ever known one?" 

"Have you ever blown one?" 

"Have you ever shown one?" 

"Have you ever flown one?" 

"Have you ever thrown one?" 

"Have you ever grown one?" 

Game 3. Make up a similar one for the class to play, using 
these words : 

bought caught 

thought taught 

fought brought 

Game 4. A similar game may be made, using the following 
sentences, only there will be no rhyming words in it : 

I saw it. I ate it. I said it. 

I did it. I lost it. I showed it. 

I chose it. I took it. I strung it. 

I wrote it. I gave it. I spun it. 

I broke it. I sang it. I hid it. 

I tore it. I shook it. I bit it. 

I wore it. I swung it. T wove it. 

I stuck it. I rang it. 

I drove it. I dug it. 



APPENDIX II I4I 

Drill 13. 

Use of "Doesn't". 

"Tell me some things your mother doesn't do ; your father ; 
your teacher; a squirrel; a robin:" 

"My mother doesn't talk English." 
"My mother doesn't work in the mill." 
"My mother doesn't start the fire." 
"My mother doesn't chop wood." 
"My mother doesn't like dirty boys." 



142 



APPENDIX III 



APPENDIX III. 

STANDARD LETTER FORMS. 

These are the letter forms adopted for use in the Boston Public 

Schools in 1914, upon the recommendation of the Department 

of Educational Measurement* 



APPENDIX III 



THE FRIENDLY LETTER. 

316 Summit Street, 

Pomona, Cal., 
September 2, 1913. 
Dear Marion, 

Mother and I reached home yesterday after our visit 
of three months in the East. Although we had a pleasant 
time with our relatives in Maine and Massachusetts, we 
are glad to be at home once more. 

The peaches and plums are ripe now, and we spend 
all day on the ranch helping the men gather the crop. 
I wish that you could be here to help eat our peaches, 
but I suppose you are enjoying your good Massachusetts 
apples. 

Give my love to your mother and write soon. 

Your loving friend, 

Helen Garland. 



THE BUSINESS LETTER. 

321 Beacon Street, 
Boston. Mass.. 

January 20, 1914. 
Charles Lowell & Company, 
36 State Street, 

Boston, Mass. 
Dear Sirs : 

In reply to your advertisement in today's "Herald" 
for a clerk in your office, I wish to submit my application. 
I am fourteen years of age and am a graduate of 
the Prospect School-. My report card shows my standing 
in arithmetic and spelling. This letter is a specimen of 
my handwriting. 

I refer to Mr. John L. Stevens, the principal of the 
Prospect School, and to Rev. George Chase, 25 Wilson 
Road, Boston. 

Trusting that you will consider my application favor- 
ably. I am, 

Respectfully yours. 

Richard H. Williams. 



1 4.5 



1 44 



APPENDIX III 



Arrangement of Letter. 

The heading should be at least one inch from the top of 
the paper. 

The heading and also the complimentary close should begin 
near the middle of the line. 

Each line after the first in the heading and in the compli- 
mentary close should begin a little farther to the right than 
the preceding line. 

There should be a margin of one-half inch on the left side 
of the note paper. 

A paragraph margin should be twice the regular margin. 

The complimentary close should begin with a capital and 
should be followed by a comma. 

Model Form for Addressing Envelope. 

Miss Marion L. Brown, Charles Lowell and Company, 

14 Prospect Street, 36 State Street, 

Reading, Mass. Boston, Mass. 

Directions for Envelope. 

1. Use ink in addressing letters or other mail matter. 

2. Write plainly the name of the person addressed, street 
and number, post office and state. 

3. Place your name and address in the upper left hand 
corner of the envelope or package. 

4. The name of the person addressed should be written 
in about the middle of the envelope and with about as much 
space at the right as at the left, and each following line of the 
superscription should begin an even distance at the right of the 
preceding line. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 729 908 1 # 



DICK & TRUMPOLD. 
ICE, MASSACHUSETTS. 



